Terrible, Terrible Twins
by Survivor243
Summary: When a pair of twin brothers from 2013 find themselves transported into another dimension and in a familiar universe, will they stand to and find a way home or help take down the evil. Shall they find adventure, action, humor (perhaps love) and danger at every turn? Tune in for the first chapter...
1. Chapter 1

**Terrible, Terrible Twins**

_Author's Note: The concept of this story is largely self-insert mixed with canon and original content, characters and whatnot, so it won't stray too far away, but there will be minor changes, get over it. This story will be focused on the Mass Effect universe and two bothers that got sucked into this new and exciting world through a random system glitch, but not like the typical "poof! Here I am and there is Shepard!" style of self-inserts. The idea is that they have a choice on how they will appear in this new world in the timeline, appearance, abilities and whatnot, to give it more of a feel for seamless integration. The story will be largely following the youngest twin's POV, sometimes switching between the two brothers for viewpoints, other characters and such depending on the situation. Please be aware that there will be very dark aspects to this story, violence, smut, lemons, gore and language to name a few, so no flames for anyone wondering why this story will take many twists and turns. There is also going to be fluff, love, funny moments, filler chapters and such to balance out the good and bad, expect typical behaviors and classes to change slightly for my own entertainment. _

_Also to clear a few things up._

This is regular text

"Some speaking out loud obviously."

**Sound effects, written messages, automated warnings, etc.**

_Thoughts_

(Various info)

_Please be sure to enjoy this story and post comments if you feel like it, please note that I don't respond to flamers, unless it is "good" constructive criticism or I feel the need to pass along a thank you. _

**Chapter One**

Jason Brody sighed as he slumped down into the couch, kicking off his shoes and dropping his backpack on the floor next to his feet, sighing in frustration. The worst day of the week, Mondays, he cringed at the word, brought on a whole new meaning to the word suffering as he glanced at his backpack, three textbooks, two notebooks, a stack of homework papers an inch thick, his laptop with several very important files he'd need to read on to complete yet another homework assignment and everything else his professor thought would be needed.

The door opened with a bang as his identical twin, Jackson, came stumbling in like something from the dead, his backpack and gym bag dropping to the floor with a thud as he closed the door and shuffled over to the couch.

"Oh they want me to utterly fail," Jackson whined as he dropped onto the couch, "on top of the lacrosse practice I got after school, a date with Shelly on Wednesday, all the effing homework in the world and that test on Friday."

Jason spared a glance at his brother before he kicked his feet up, "Doomed?"

Jackson sighed, "Epically doomed little brother, completely and epically doomed."

A snort at the idea of being stuck as the younger brother, by a whole whopping six minutes, it had been a point between them before, but then again it didn't really matter, Jackson was like that most of the time as he glanced at the window.

"Huh, looks like the forecast for this evening is thunderstorms followed by heavy showers and despair," the sky outside was the color of granite as Jason got up from the couch and wandered over to the kitchenette, "still got some burritos in the fridge if your still hungry."

"How can eat whatever in the Hell you want and not gain a single pound?" Jackson whined from his position of the couch, having curled up in the fetal position and rocking himself, "You are a stereotypical dork while I have to slave away to have a body as good as this, it just isn't fair!"

"My God you sound like a chick," Jason sighed at his twin's antics as he dumped a bag of instant burritos into a glass bowl and tossed them in the microwave, "and I prefer the title "nerd" thank you very much."

Their bickering was something they had developed over the years, anyone else sitting in the room would have thought they were mortal enemies or something, but then again, they were twins.

Being in college together helped with the bills and schoolwork, Mom and Dad had been excited at the prospect of them graduating college and awaited news on how they were doing, which was often daily because it was a long way from Oklahoma here in Madison, Wisconsin. The scholarship, academic based for himself and athletic for Jackson, were ideal and affordable, unlike having to shell out thousands of dollars, that they didn't have, for just one semester, so they were balancing school, work and social lives precariously.

That really meant school and work, social activities were low, well in his case anyone, Jackson was the typically jock, though he wasn't a douche about it. Most nights included homework, studying for tests and such, then it was followed up by video games, movies and sleep, tonight wasn't any different as Jason nuked the burritos as Jackson fired up the Xbox.

"Want do you want to play?" Jackson asked while he flipped through a stack of games, "Gears of War? Pass. Halo 4? Na. Dead Space 2? No thanks. Call of Duty? Oh here we go, the uber nerd game of all, Mass Effect Collector's Edition, now with all three gaming experiences in one."

"Why not?" Jason said as he waited for the microwave to stop beeping before he grabbed the food and a pair of drinks from the fridge as he walked back to the living room, watching Jackson tossed the disk in and hit Play.

A resounding boom rattled the windows as the sky outside was darkening at an alarming rate as another lightning flash herald the next upcoming roll of thunder.

"Damn it, storm is going to be a good one alright," Jackson said as he tossed a controller at Jason, "pass the food man, I'm wasting away over here!"

"Fine," Jason said as he plonked the bowl down in between them and picked up his controller, "think we should unplug everything in case lightning strikes the building?"

"What for? We're on the second story of a three story building between a ten story building and a seven story building, lightning rods and all that jazz," Jackson snorted as he finished logging into his account and waited for Jason to load his account before letting the game load, "it's not like anything bad is going to"

A loud crash of thunder stuck again, hard enough to shake the appliances and furniture in the apartment, a bright flash of light appearing as Jason felt himself suddenly being yanked forward and downward, sputtering soft drink everywhere.

_What the flying fuck? _He wondered before he realized something.

"Jackson you fucking idiot! You jinxed us!"

All he got for a reply before the bright light abruptly disappeared was a long "Sorry!"

**Line Break**

His head hurt, that much was certain as he opened one eye and rolled over, spotting the form of his brother laying a few feet away.

What had happened? Oh yeah, now he remembered, firing up the Xbox in the middle of thunderstorm had seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, then lightning struck and they both got electrocuted it seemed.

Only except that instead of seeing the familiar surroundings of their living room, Jason frowned at the bland white walls and floors, lit up by some light source he couldn't see as he got to one knee. The annoying thing was that he couldn't see the actual walls or ceiling, the ground seemed solid enough, but he shielded his eyes for several seconds to allow them to adjust to the overwhelming brightness.

_Da fuck? _If they were dead then he was going to be royally pissed as he walked over to where Jackson was snoring away, honestly asleep after dying, typical.

"Yo," he nudged Jackson with the side of his foot, "wake up and join the land of the living bro, because this is really messed up."

"Naugh," Jason sighed in relief as his brother answered him, "turn down the lights man, my eyes are killing me over here."

"Jackson, you need to wake up," Jason paused as he looked around again, "I think we're dead."

"What are you talking about?" Jackson groaned as he rolled over, rubbing his eyes, "I swear that if the guys think this is time for an initiation rite, I'm gonna bust a gasket."

Jason watched as he stood up, blinked owlishly several times, spun in a slow circle to get a good look at his surroundings before he stared blankly at him for several seconds, "Da fuck?"

"My thoughts exactly," Jason replied as he walked in a random direction, Jackson hobbling after him to keep up, "it's almost as though we died or something."

"Hey Jason, hold still."

"Hmm, what"

**Thud!**

"Dude what the Hell!" Jason shouted as he massaged his aching shoulder and glared at Jackson who stood there staring at his hand in awe, "that hurt!"

"I know," Jackson whispered as he flexed his fingers before looking up, "it hurt and you didn't wake up, so this can't be a dream can it?"

Jason paused for a few seconds, "No, it obviously isn't a dream."

"Shit, now what?" Jackson asked as he crossed his arms and bounced on his toes, a twitch he had developed when he was on the verge of panic, not that Jason didn't think about joining him as he ran both hands through his hair and wracked his brains.

"I doubt that we were abducted and this is some freaking Matrix shit or some jazz," Jackson rattled off as he started pacing back and forth, "maybe a coma where we can feel pain, but not wake up? No doesn't make any sense."

"Quiet, I'm trying to think Jackson." Jason snapped as he sat down and pondered what had happened.

Jackson paused to reach down and grab an can and up ended it over his face, frowning comically as nothing came out before he dropped the can and kicked it, "Well that's just great, no drinks or snack food while we discover ourselves in some kind of sci-fi dilemma, just wonderful, I wonder what will happen next."

"Jackson, shut up already, I need to think!" Jason shouted as he scratched his head.

"Next thing you know something is going to jump out and attack us, you wait and see bro, it's gonna happen." Jackson was frantic as Jason reached over and slapped him.

"Get a hold of yourself," Jason huffed, "there is nothing else here, so calm down already."

"Greetings."

"WWWAAAAAHHHHH!" (The undignified cry of a pair of startled human males as they jumped into each other's arms.)

Hovering behind them about five feet off the ground was a glowing ball of white light the size of a basketball, but it appeared to be translucent and made of revolving light, almost like…

"Hold the phone," Jason muttered as he dropped his twin ("Ouch! Don't leave me!") and stepped closer to the glowing orb, "Glyph? Is that you?"

"Correct, this unit has been designated in guiding and providing both of you with the proper guidance in order to create a user profile and integrating into the system." The orb pulsed for a second, speaking in the same tone as the Glyph he knew from Mass Effect 2 and 3.

Jackson stood up, brushing himself off as he glanced between Jason and the hovering info drone, "You know this guy?"

"Yep, info drone thing from the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC and in Mass Effect 3," Jason replied before turning back to Glyph, "that is correct right?"

"Correct, now please follow this unit to the user friendly interface system so as to create proper profiles," Glyph chirped before turning around and flying away, "this way to the interface."

Jason shrugged as he followed the drone, Jackson opting to throw his hands into the air before following after the talking drone and his twin.

"This is nuts," Jackson muttered as they caught up with Glyph, "we got a talking ball of light from a video game acting as our impromptu tour guide through whatever this place is?"

"This is the space between realities, a pocket dimension created through the influx of change between two dimensions that allowed the two of you to reach this place," Glyph responded as it came to a halt, "in order for you to enter the next dimension, you must create a proper profiles in order leave this place."

"Woah there talking electro-Yoda guy thing," Jackson said as Glyph turned around, "you mean we can return back to our reality, dimension or whatever?"

Glyph halted his revolving light show for a brief second, "That is an incorrect assumption, in fact it is the opposite, you must create a profile in order to enter the reality, there is no chance of returning back to the plane of reality from which you have traveled from as you are now hurtling through time and space into another reality and you must prepare, or you shall never leave this place."

Jackson scratched the side of his head before glancing at Jason, "Want to put that in English?"

"What he means to say is that we cannot go back, only forward and in order to do that we have to create profiles," Jason glanced at Glyph for a second, "because without them, we cannot leave this place, right?"

"Correct," Glyph paused for a second before it bobbed a few times and a loud zapping sound before something appeared from thin air, "please input proper profile commands and we shall begin."

"Wait, what?" Jackson said as he stepped forward, easily within arms' reach of the computer terminal that had suddenly appeared.

It was a large grey rectangle tilted at a 45 degree angle forward covered in an orange glowing light that could be made out as a keyboard, number pad, touch sensitive pad, a whole bunch of other keys that didn't make sense. A hesitative swipe at it revealed another feature, a pop up screen above the obvious keyboard, some kind of holographic display as Jason stepped up to it proper to read it. A simple loading screen appeared for a brief second before a screen loaded that he recognized as he looked back and forth between the screen and Glyph several times before Jackson peered over his shoulder.

"Well shit."

That was putting it mildly, Jason discovered the controls were universal and very easy to figure out as he began scrolling through massive amounts of data, more specifically the Codex.

The Codex of the Mass Effect universe.

"Is now a good time to panic or do I have to wait?" Jackson asked as Jason shushed him, diving into the articles, files and documents that outlined everything that was very important to the Mass Effect world.

Because that world was about to become their reality soon.

History, planets, star clusters, Mass Relay travel routes, technology, science, languages, biology (skipped over the Krogan biology lesson), species, schematics, politics, designs and other things, reams of information as Jason stared in utter disbelief at what he was seeing.

"Does the user wish to create a profile?" Glyph inquired as Jason had to sit down before he fainted from the sheer shock as his twin glanced at the drone and scoffed.

"Alright, so what is the big deal here Light bulb? We gotta become saviors of the galaxy to restore balance to the cosmos or some deal, give us a hint or something because we're a little out of our depth here." Jackson threw his arms wide to gesture and hopefully emphasize the severity of the situation.

Glyph paused for a few seconds, "In order for the users to integrate successfully into the reality, a profile must be created to ensure no abnormalities occur that could alter the reality in any way, shape or form, safeguards have already been put in place, but it would appear that user input is required for integration."

"Oh, enough with the techno babble already and give us a straight answer," Jackson sighed as he massaged his temples, "you got any ideas Jason, because I'm fresh out."

"We need to become team members of Shepard," Jason answered as he climbed to his feet and approached the computer, "we can create whole new identities for ourselves, I bet we could create a character that we will become."

"That wasn't what I really wanted to hear Jason," Jackson sighed as he watched his twin begin working at the console, "you can't be serious."

Jason paused what he was doing and looked up, "Oh I'm dead serious and I've already begun to find several flaws with this plan."

"I refuse to become some alien, blond chick or the wimpy techno geek," Jackson laughed as he stepped next to the console and took a deep breath, "alright, what have we got to work with?"

**Line Break**

In short order (four hours, seventeen minutes and thirty-one seconds according to Glyph) the twins discovered just how much control they had over creating a user profile when it came to the Mass Effect universe.

A lot and Jason was quick to point out how they had to place a cover story or some such nonsense while Jackson discovered just how detailed the character appearance program was, (somewhere between the lines of GFT 4 and Saint's Row 3 it turned out) as well as the background story aspect.

Jason had been the first to argue how they should be portrayed in this new universe so as to avoid suspicion. Even though all the available data pertaining to every single subject in every single game was downloaded into both of their characters, (Glyph pointed out in order to avoid messing up the timeline, blocks were placed on information pertaining to the first, second and third stages of the game, Jackson was very upset when he discovered that he couldn't run around with a nuke launcher until the second installment) along with specific skill sets picked by each one of them, there was still the matter of making themselves powerful enough to join the team of a Human Spectre without going completely overboard.

Another sensitive topic was that the transition wouldn't be seamless and they would have a difficult time understanding the current cultural cues and such, so Jason had come up with yet another answer to that problem, one that Jackson agreed too nonetheless.

In order to have half the stuff Jackson wanted, they would create a history of being Cerberus test subjects, cloned from birth and given extensive genetic modification and cybernetic upgrades, as well as proper biotic abilities and such. It would be the ideal cover story, history of their involvement with Cerberus was short and to the point, they had been cloned in a lab somewhere, got some training, escaped and been on the run from Cerberus (a single isolated cell that not even The Illusive Man himself knew about because it had been created for this sole purpose) before they came across Eden Prime to start a new life.

As for the personal development and character improvements, this is where the twins were at a crossroads of sorts before they decided to create their own characters and go from there.

Jason had scanned his own body size and dimensions into the computer, adding a long list of upgrades that boosted his reaction time, balance, agility, mental thought processes, biotic abilities and giving himself a much more toned looked. He wasn't above improving the little things, correcting eyesight, respiratory, organ functions, nervous system, vastly improved immune system that was borderline Wolverine, biotic aptitude enhancements that would easily put him on par with Subject Zero and a few other nifty features. His primary specialties were biotic and tech skills (not to mention every single weapon, armor, engine, electronic lock, cyber code and mechanical schematic downloaded into his brain) along with extensive weapon training in all manner of weapons, offensive tech skills and a long list of biotic skills that would progressively become unlocked through each segment.

Jackson on the other hand decided that he wanted to create the ultimate body just because he could and wanted to, currently by creating a body that would make James Vega green with envy. He went more for the same base upgrades Jason had worked out, but he shied away from the biotic potential for some reason or another, going more into the raw power of a Soldier class that got worked over by the Terminator, Chuck Norris and Wolverine combined. The idea of having faster reflexes, reaction times, speed, strength (of course he wanted enough bodily strength to move upwards of eight hundred pounds), dense muscles, bone weaves, tissue replication cells to allow for faster healing, adrenaline rush amplified by twenty, a ridiculously high pain tolerance and a few other things. He went more towards hand-to-hand combat training (nine different martial arts, four styles of boxing, MMA training that would make Vin Diesel jealous, and every known unarmed combat technique known by every single species), body conditioning, demolition/explosives training, everything from pistol to vehicle mounted weapon systems in detail and just general all around tank character development.

Other such petty arguments, such as tattoos, scars, height, weight, appearance and such (Glyph noted that the argument over who had the bigger dick ran to be an hour and twenty-seven minutes before Jason remarked that sixteen inches was just excessive, not that either one of them really cared) they had decided to keep their overall original appearances as much as possible, because not only did they want to keep the twin thing going, but they also had to be clones.

Aside from the fact that Jackson had a solid foot (7'2" to Jason's 6' 1") and over one hundred eighty pounds on him, they looked exactly alike, white Caucasian males, dirty blond hair and green eyes, just like before.

Jason had opted for multiple surgical scars to prove the whole 'genetic clone experiment' thing they had going, along with a few other scars that could be anything from bladed weapon injuries to 'childhood accidents' and he tossed in a few tattoos. The only must have tattoo was a simple barcode with a long series of numbers (which coincidently was his date of birth and age in reverse) on his left arm, his other tattoos were simple things on his shoulders and back, something he had never gotten around to getting in his real life.

Jackson took it all out of proportion, ditto the surgical scars and the 'genetic clone experiment' tattoo with his own information, but he had several tattoos covering his arms, shoulders, chest, neck, back, thighs and face. He had gotten a tribal tat (similar to the one in Hangover Part II) on the left side of his face, along with a few others somewhere that couldn't be seen if he was wearing a shirt, or armor for that matter, along with more scars, everything from knife wounds, mass accelerator wounds, shrapnel, burns, acid scars, animal bites (the Varren bite pattern around his right leg was going to get lots of mileage) and other assorted mementoes a man of his stature would have collected.

It turned out to be a relief when Glyph informed them that past memories from their old reality wouldn't be made available to this reality (Jackson had been pleased to hear this as he was muttering "Embrace Eternity indeed" to himself) while 'fake' ones were planted in the event their minds were probed (or as Jackson said, "Willingly surrendered.") so as to avoid revealing that they were not from this reality.

In fact, many safeguards had been put in place, there was no way they could tell anyone in this reality where they had come from in fact and they didn't have to worry about saying something that would alert someone, given the right situation and circumstance, after which Jason had a long conversation with Jackson about.

Then came the default clothing and equipment decisions that nearly had Jason ripping his hair out and Jackson deliriously happy, but he got talked down into a lot less than he wanted because they had to pass off the 'escaped lab rat and desperate' appeal, not the 'top of the line Spectre grade armor and weapons' and enough money to buy a small planet.

It was the little things Jason pointed out that would help with the cover story, along with a lot of help and insight from Glyph, painstaking leaving a long list of tells as well without being too obvious. They had settled on low level suits of armor that had the original Cerberus colors before being painted over, in a manner that would show the armor had been looted from a Cerberus complex as well as shoddy detail by hand. Jackson had gotten the first tier one omni-tool, put a few programs, a couple thousand credits and some other useless junk data generated by Glyph to show a browser history and had been done with it, but Jason had done the exact opposite.

Rather than give himself a Savant Mk X, he had heavily modified a Bluewire Mk III model, loading it with programs, creating a few new ones, the browser history Glyph created, the reason behind this junk data was to show anyone that both omni-tools had belonged to these users for a certain amount of time (coincidently the same day they had been scrubbed from a previous setting and programed to suit their needs) and such. The little things, such as avoiding high end weapons with extensive mods, the idea was 'cheap and serviceable' and not 'expensive, flashy and overpowered' that Jackson wanted.

Turned out that the weapon rating system wasn't based on damage points like the games were, but more for functionality, durability, number of shots, power, accuracy, range, cooldown period and other technical stuff, so Jason had laid down the law that he would be having the final decision on weapons after allowing Jackson to draw the decals on his armor.

A horrible price to pay, but it would prevent any suspicion if a pair of random strangers showed up with high quality weapons with low quality armor and other supplies.

First he gave them matching Kessler Mk II pistols, he installed an Mk I stability dampener and a Mk III hammerhead ammo mod for Jackson and gave his own pistol a Mk II combat scanner and a Mk II phasic ammo mod.

For assault rifles, he'd given them both standard issue weapons, Mk I Lancers with matching Mk I scram rails and Mk II tungsten ammo mods, the most default weapon in the game that would be quickly upgraded in his mind, having to refrain from beating Jackson aside the head when he asked for a Revenant.

He passed the only shotgun off to Jackson, a Storm Mk III with a Mk I heat sink and a Mk II anti-personnel round ammo mod, but he took a sniper rifle for himself, a Mk I Lightning Strike with a Mk II precision optic and a Mk II sledgehammer ammo mod just in the event they'd actually need a long range weapon such as that.

For grenades he kept it simple, three for Jackson and two for himself without any kind of upgrade for now, but he allowed Jackson to equip himself with a vast collection of bladed weapons and such, though he crossed a line at the broadsword.

Jackson decided on seven throwing knives, two combat knives, a larger field knife (that looked uncannily like the one Emile carried on Halo: Reach), a tomahawk and a collapsible baton while Jason went for a much more simple mixture of three knives and a machete he fully intended to use for clearing vegetation and using it as a pry bar in a pinch. Another amazing feature was they would give the weapons personnel touches, signs of extended wear and tear, scuffs, dings, scratches and other damage, the little things Jason reminded himself.

From there Glyph had given them detailed information on the current reality and they were both stunned when they got around to reading Shepard's file.

Or both of their files as it turned out.

"Commander John Shepard," Jackson blinked before turning to the left where another personnel file was displayed, "Commander Jane Shepard, huh that never happened in the game."

Glyph was a Godsend as he passed along information pertaining to them both, apparently John was the Butcher of Trofan after having a rough childhood on Earth with the Tenths Street Reds (Jackson called that he was a Renegade) while Jane was the Lion of Elysium, grew up as spacer brat and joined the Alliance (definitely a Paragon). Turned out that they were husband and wife before both instances occurred in their careers and they were both under scrutiny to be Humanity's first Human Spectre ever, both were default characters while John was an Infiltrator and Jane appeared to be an Adept.

Everything else checked out, no surprise gender swaps or special characters so far, Glyph providing detailed information on Joker, Dr. Chakwas, Presley, Adams, Garrus Vakarian, Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko, Liara T'Soni, Urdnot Wrex, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and all the other notable characters that Jason had downloaded to their minds.

"Gonna get me some blue," Jackson giggled (his shameless romancing of Liara in all three games apparent) as he watched Jason from the corner of his eye, "now no cock blocking on my end and I won't cock block you."

"What?" Jason felt the sweat trickle down the back of his neck as Jackson smiled that annoying smile of his.

"Oh you know, the whole 'what's under the visor' (yes finger quotes were used) as I remember you going on about," Jackson laughed as Jason tried to muster up a proper response, "you've always had a crush on her."

Jason sighed, (secretly delighted that both Shepard's were married to each other and therefore leaving Tali available to be romanced) "Last time I checked you didn't have any blue tattoos or biotics, so why would she interested in you?"

Muttering something about a bet, Jackson turned away as Glyph hovered in between their heads, "Have sufficient profiles been created?"

Jason paused for a long moment to think, this wasn't just some randomly created character to play thirty consecutive hours of FPS on a pixelated screen with the option of a respawn along with a restart ability if things got difficult, this was about to be their new lives as he shared a long look with his twin. More words were spoken silently in those few seconds than in a real conversation as Jason looked back at Glyph and swallowed.

"Yes, these profiles are acceptable," he paused for a second before adding, "thank you Glyph, we couldn't have done it without you."

"Yeah, we'll miss you Light bulb," Jackson raised his hand towards the info drone and smiled, "high five buddy."

The resulting electronic shock startled Jackson enough to yelp in surprise as Jason smiled and waved at Glyph.

"Prepare yourselves for minor disorientation," Glyph responded after Jason stopped laughing Jackson's expense as they turned to watch the drone glow brighter, "in ten…nine….eight…"

"This is the part where one of us breaks down and babbles something girlish right?" Jackson asked as Glyph continued the countdown as Jason shrugged.

"Eh, ladies first I guess." He laughed again.

Comments about genital size (Jason smiled at the look of pure horror when he told Jackson about the possibility that he had altered Jackson's file to be a hermaphrodite, priceless) and other demeaning factors flew back and forth between the two as Glyph continued counting down unnoticed until a bright flash appeared.

And then they were gone.

Glyph remained for a few seconds longer before a beep caused the console to disappear into nothingness as the white light began to fade.

"Best hope for reality survival," Glyph's 'face' spun a few times, "high chances of success."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

The first thing Jason realized that instead of some physics defying trip through the shifting planes of reality and crossing into another dimension like how most movies portrayed it, was that it felt like he had suddenly dropped a foot before coming to stop as the sudden influx of sensations assaulted him. Sunlight, wind blowing, pollen in the air, gravity, feeling in his limbs and such as the additional biotic stimulation of his senses, unfamiliar tightening of his muscles and other such things as he glanced to his left.

Jackson was frowning as he found himself holding a tattered bag over his shoulder where his armor and weapons were stored before glancing around, "That's it? I was waiting for something else you know?"

Jason chuckled as he picked his bag up off the ground, already turning on his omni-tool (the inner nerd absolutely going nuts) to check the time, "Yeah well, it's going to be a change now that you are taller than me."

"The half inch shorter jokes have finally come to end little brother," Jason rolled his eyes as he silently wondered how Jackson was going to put his extra-large size into many tight places that were doubt to come, "this is awesome, I feel stronger."

To prove this statement, he dropped his bag and walked over to the nearest object, a large metal crate, and picked it up easily before tossing it easily fifty feet.

Jason smiled as he felt a tingle, glancing down at his hands he went through the motion to summon a biotic Pull, aimed at the very crate his twin had just thrown, watching at the aura surrounding the object flickered and pulsed with life as he gently set it down.

"Showoff," Jackson snorted as he looked around, "so where are we?"

A rushed sense of forbidding went through him as he glanced at his omni-tool again and sighed, "Half a mile from the spaceport and an hour before the attack begins, so three hours before the Normandy comes swooping in to save the day."

They both remained where they were for several minutes, taking in the scenery before Jason scooped up his bag and trudged over to a pile of crates, "We better get suited up."

"Alright, guess we can't go running around warning people a sentient starship is about to attack with bunch of angry robots and stuff right?" Jackson shrugged as he picked up his bag and followed Jason.

"Somehow I doubt that will work," Jason reminded him, "remember what Glyph said about attempting to reveal the whole other dimension thing, that and I don't feel like busting out of straightjacket in the middle of a Geth invasion."

"Ah come on, it could be fun."

**Line Break**

"That was Sovereign?" Jackson asked as he watched the massive starship touch down miles away as he let a long whistle, "We really need to rethink our strategy if we ever plan on killing one of those things."

"Come on, we better reach the spaceport and watch," Jason said as led the way, a handy nav point on his HUD for now as Jackson followed behind him, "remember, we need to stick to the plan."

"So let the evil guy blow away the good guy in the first ten minutes?" Jackson scowled before he spotted the look Jason was giving him, "Oh right, capture footage of Saren ordering a bunch of Geth around, and nearly kill the good guy as we swoop in and save the day."

He glanced over with a questioning look, "We are going to save this guy right?"

"If we can, but our main focus is getting the dirt on Saren so we can add the evidence with Tali's in order to convict the asshole in front of the Council." Jason said as they reached the crest of a hill overlooking the spaceport as he looked around, taking in the area.

"We'll set up here, you watch my six and I'll keep a lookout for the evil cyborg guy," Jason said as he unfolded his sniper rifle (definitely a handy feature in the future it seemed) and took up a comfortable position as Jackson went over to a nearby boulder and did the same with his assault rifle, "don't shoot unless something shoots at us first or until I say so."

"Gotcha," Jackson sighed as he fiddled with his rifle, mostly from the memories implanted in his head, "so big ship lands, lets out a really bad club remix soundtrack and lets the minions do all the dirty work while we wait for the bad guy to waltz up into our sights."

Jason sighed, "His shields and armor can probably stop everything we throw at him from this distance and if we fuck up the timeline, then how badly would the rest of the timeline handle?"

"I know, I know, it's just that we can save ourselves a lot of trouble if we just killed him now and be done with it." Jackson whined before silencing as Jason raised a single finger.

Geth platforms marched across the spaceport, lugging a trio of Dragon's Teeth with them as they gathered up several dead dock workers before a familiar sight walked up.

"Here we go," Jason whispered as he toggled his omni recording through his helmet cam that was synched with his sniper rifle scope, "what have we here."

**Line Break**

"Movement and sounds of gunfire to the east," Jackson whispered two hours later as Jason adjusted his form to sweep his gaze in that direction, finding nothing before returning his gaze to the cybernetic Turain prowling the spaceport.

So far in the last two hours, sixteen Geth platforms, ten drones, six Dragon's Teeth and just as many dead bodies were carted past their vantage point, a good thing Saren felt like being dramatic by standing in the open so he could issue orders to the random Geth that walked past, convenient as he was busy recording the Turain.

He hadn't heard the Normandy come in for a landing, but the sounds of gunfire were getting closer, it was a prototype stealth frigate after all as he spotted some movement down below as he zoomed in.

The game failed to give the sniper rifle any justice, the levels of zoom were spectacular and as long as he remained still he didn't have to worry about excessive swaying, but he hated the limited number of shots he had at his disposal.

A Turain dressed in black and red armor armed with plenty of hardware was moving through a cluster of boulders just below where Saren was standing around, Nihlus Kryik, the Spectre who was supposed to be watching both Shepard's and instead gets his head blown off by his old mentor, which also meant that reinforcements would be arriving soon in the form of Williams, Alenko and both Shepard's.

_Showtime, _he exhaled softly to track a view of Nihlus stalking closer to Saren, panning out slightly to show Saren as well, _this is where it becomes clear._

Nihlus confronts Saren, acts surprised, Saren plays it off coolly, calming the student as Jason watched carefully, making sure the recording was still running as he watched the events unfold before him.

The younger Turain had stepped past Saren, taking in the view as he kept talking, never noticing that his old mentor was drawing his sidearm and lining up for a shot.

He was farther away, needing to take three small steps forward in order for the barrel of the pistol to be inside the protective bubble of the kinetic shields as Jason made his decision.

**ZUUWOP! **(Sounded so much louder on the screen)

Jason watched as his round sailed down with pinpoint accuracy at the range of two hundred meters and some change before slamming into the weak point of Saren's defenses, where the shielding was weaker and allowing him to save a life.

Saren Arterius was expecting his modified pistol to punch a neat hole through the back of his old pupil's head with ease, solving his current problem of covering his tracks when instead he got a high powered round right through the wrist. His shielding had actually saved him from a terrible injury, it slowed the round down enough to avoid having his hand blown off, instead punching through the soft undersuit material between gaps in his armor and into his wrist deep enough to crack the carapace and draw blood, while throwing his aim off to the left by a wide margin.

Jason watched as the natural reflex caused the pistol to discharge and he felt his heart stop in his throat at the sight of Nihlus dropping to the ground like sack of hammers as Saren did some kind of biotic Charge and got out Dodge.

"Shit," Jackson swore as he crawled forward, "didn't expect that to happen, you get him?"

They were play acting largely for the most part, benefit for the camera as he adjusted his aim to get a closer look at the prostate Nihlus, "I got the hostile for sure, but no idea who that guy was, they seemed to know each other though."

"Double cross you think?" Jackson inquired out loud, which was Jason's cue to reply with a slip of the tongue now that the real evidence was over with, something they had been agreeing on for the last two hours.

"Don't know, don't care," Jason answered as he panned his view around a little, "movement at the top of the slope, single man."

Commander John Shepard in the flesh armed with a sniper rifle, no doubt doing a little recon as a familiar Kaidan Alenko crept into view, followed by the obvious Ashley Williams in her pink armor as Commander Jane Shepard in her armor brought up the rear.

The whole gang was here.

"The Hell?" Jason said as watched the Dragon's Teeth lowered their deadly cargo, "Looks like the Alliance showed up, better give them a hand."

He turned off the camera at that and fired a round at the closest Husk shambling towards the group as he noticed Jackson moving forward with his assault rifle at the ready.

Jason followed him, switching out his sniper rifle for his pistol, he intended to make his biotics useful as they reached the edge of the cliff overlooking the spaceport and jumped down onto the roof of the warehouse as Jackson let loose with a burst to distract the Geth heading towards the others.

A biotic Pull snared another Geth trooper towards them as they shredded it with combined weapons fire as they dropped onto the ground and stepped closer to Nihlus as John appeared with Williams in tow, weapons raised.

"These guys part of your unit Chief?" Jason watched as John Shepard questioned Williams without so much as looking away from the pair of them as he put his pistol away and approached the body of Nihlus while Jackson stepped closer.

Ashley gave them both a look, pausing over Jackson before returning to her brand new commander with a shake of her head, "Negative sir, I'd remember if we had a damn giant in the 212th and I have no idea who these guys are."

A scan with his omni-tool had revealed something startling before Jason spoke, "This guy is still alive!"

Three various replies of "What?" from the peanut gallery answered him as Jason began to apply liberal amounts of medi-gel to the head injury Nihlus had suffered while Jackson helped him by rolling the Turain over on his side.

A portion of his head frills on the lower left side of his skull had been blown off when Saren had managed to pull the trigger, missing the brain, spinal column and what passed for major arteries in Turain biology, instead blowing a chunk off the side of his head. Medical diagnostics from his scanner showed that old Nihlus over here would be suffering from the worst headache ever, along with extreme loss of balance (something equivalent to a human inner ear affecting balance was located in the area of the injury) and discomfort as he finished the hasty medical job of patching up the wound.

By then, Jane and Alenko had arrived, Jason noting the new pistol being swapped out with her old one as well as the smile on her face before all four of them noticed who the Turain was.

Or at least three of them did anyway.

"This isn't good," Jane said before shifting her gaze, as well as her stance towards the two newcomers, "what happened here?"

Jackson butted it before Jason could get a word in otherwise, "He got blasted by another Turain in the back of the head, don't know if he knew the guy or what, but he should've been dead as dead can get if my brother over here didn't take the shot."

John had followed the pointing finger at the ridge, mentally calculating the area seen from that vantage point before taking in his surroundings, dropping down to one knee in order to look carefully at the ground while Williams snorted.

"Looks like you missed hotshot," her tone was borderline hostile as she looked over at the demolished Geth, "Why'd you wait until to start firing? You could've done a real number on these guys from up there, chicken or something?"

"Chief, that's enough," Jane said as she stepped up next to her husband, "what have you got?"

"Blood that I'm willing to bet didn't come from our resident Turain Spectre laying over yonder," John answered as he examined the ground in front of him with intense scrutiny, "those Geth walked by here a lot for some reason and I got some scuff marks from something heavy, around the same weight as a Turain give or take."

Jackson did a double take before leaning over to whisper to Jason, "This guy is good."

"Remind me not to play poker with this guy." Jason muttered as he watched his twin step over next to the crates and lunged over it with a triumphant cry of "Gotcha!"

Weapons were trained on the new figure, the guy hiding behind the crates because he was taking a nap and having witnessed the whole thing, was dragged into view as Jackson held him easily by the scruff of the neck two feet of the ground before gently depositing him in front of both commanders.

"We could see this guy hiding from our vantage point the whole time," Jackson remarked as he clapped the guy in the shoulder, "though why you didn't use those grenades we saw you messing around with was the real question."

That sparked off a heated debate between Jane, Williams and the poor dock worker before he coughed up the grenades and the Mk II high explosive upgrade mods while Jason helped John drag Nihlus behind a different stack of crates for safety as Alenko played neutral party during the argument as Jackson simply stood there and watched.

"Alright, got his testimony recorded and filed away," Jane said as they watched the poor guy bolt for the first group of civilians, "now as for you two…"

"Jason and Jackson Brody at your service ma'am," Jackson said before tilting his head and squinting at Jane, "come to think of it, you both look kind of familiar."

That triggered off a round of introductions, getting everyone on the same page as well as lowering Williams's hostility a few notches after they explained why it had been a better idea to hide and wait instead of charging in guns blazing before Jason heard something.

"Shotgun!" He barked and was glad that Jackson tossed his shotgun to him and pulled out his own assault rifle while diving towards cover as the rest of the group scattered.

A dozen Geth platforms were steadily marching towards them (must be Insanity mode) as Jason flared his biotic energy and launched a Singularity into their midst before erecting a barrier around himself and stepping closer.

"Open fire!" John yelled as his rifle fired twice, taking a pair of troopers down as Jason watched a biotic Throw sail over his head, along with four grenades, an Overload and plenty of assault rifle fire, shredding the front half of the approaching Geth.

That electronic chirping occurred every single time one of them went down for the count as the biotic orb faded away, dropping three troopers onto the ground as Jason ducked behind solid cover in time to avoid taking a rocket to the chest, firing several times before the shotgun overheated. Not one to be determined, he leaned out far enough from cover to send a Throw at the one rocket trooper before it could get a bead on one of them as he watched another attack, a Pull this time around, from Alenko target another Geth.

They were just mopping up the rest of them before a damn Geth Destroyer walked into view as Jason found himself crouching behind rapidly denigrating cover under the withering pulse rifle fire coming from the larger Geth.

"BADA BOOM BITCH!" Jackson yelled as he tossed a pair of hand grenades at the towering Geth platform, "Jason! Quit playing around and light that overrated hunk of scrap metal up already!"

"On it!" Jason replied as he vaulted over his source of protection, giving off a biotic aura that turned a dark blue before he hunched his shoulders forward and smiled.

**Line Break**

He was speechless, utterly speechless and this was a first for Commander John Shepard as he took in the sight before with the same look of awe and shock as his lovely wife, that prissy boy poster child and that new Marine they picked up before they had run into these two characters.

He settled his gaze on Alenko, the recent biotic expert aside from his wife, who had the same look he was pretty sure he had, "Alenko, mind telling me how that is possible?"

Alenko appeared just as stunned as he was, "I have no idea whatsoever Commander, but it appears that he just executed a biotic Charge, mixed with some kind of barrier and a condensed blast of biotic energy the moment he collided with the big one, where he somehow tore it's head off bare handed before pumping a couple rounds into its chest."

A glance at the carnage spread out in front of him as he turned back Alenko, "And here I was thinking that humans couldn't pull off a Singularity."

"I have no idea sir," Alenko shrugged as he turned to Jane, "any thoughts ma'am?"

"Incredible…" the dreamy sound in her voice set warning bells off in his head as he wife pointed the most adorable puppy dog eyed expression known to man in his direction that made him wonder if he could ever win this argument, "John…._canIpleasekeephim_!"

"He's just a kid Jane," the pleading look intensified as Alenko made an unpleasant sound in his throat while Williams gave his wife a look of pure empathy, "we have no idea who and what he even is."

The metal body of a decapitated Geth platform sailed overhead and crashed into the nearest wall not far from where they were crouched before the other one, the giant, appeared out of nowhere pile driving a retreating Geth with an almost Krogan tenacity that involved an arm and a leg ripped off before another grenade was applied in a downright violent manner.

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams soon joined in the silent begging next to his wife.

"No, that is final, they seem like kids for Christ sake!" He barked as he felt his resolve slipping away before a loud explosion and a crash diverted his attention to the battle, which was turning into a one side massacre to be honest and just stared.

In shock.

Both of the brothers were standing back to back in tattered remnants of their armor which had been blasted by the apparent rocket or powerful weapon blast as the remaining Geth platform, similar to the first big one, was now a shredded heap some twenty meters away, as the giant hefted an active Geth platform over his head and hurled it hard enough to crush an unwary ally before he ripped the shattered remains of his armor off and hurled the chest plate like an oversized Frisbee at the next one. The shorter one, launched another series of Throws and Warps before removing his own armor that was on fire, opting to launch biotic attacks one handed while firing a pistol.

The sight was something else to see, destroyed Geth were scattered around them like they were the epicenter of an explosion as they fought in absolute perfect harmony, no spoken commands or excessive body language, the subtle nudge and the occasional tilt of the head speaking far more than any form of verbal communication ever could as he noticed one more detail.

Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was giving the same pleading look as his wife and Williams, though the little of drool and blood leaking from his nose was mildly disturbing before he glanced back at the brawl going.

Exposed muscles, scars, various tattoos and injures could be seen as he glanced back at his wife in particular.

"No means no honey and I mean it!"

**Line Break**

"Alright now listen up," John Shepard said as Jason turned around from his delicate work of extracting various parts from a nearby Geth, "Williams will be remaining behind to make sure Nihlus is protected until evac arrives for them, we'll take the tram to the spaceport to find the beacon and take out any Geth resistance along the way, as for you two, you'll be coming with us."

"You got it Boss," Jackson smiled as he glanced back at Williams standing by the injured Spectre, "are you sure that you want us to come along instead of the Chief?"

Jason rolled his eyes as he surveyed their surroundings with a critical eye, taking in all of the destroyed Geth platforms, white hydraulic fluid/blood sprayed everywhere, scorch marks from explosives, warped metal plating from his extensive use of biotics and the condition of himself and his twin before returning to his work of prying out the delicate components.

He felt someone step up next to his shoulder, "What are you doing?"

Jane Shepard watched him as he pried of another plate covering the torso of the Geth Destroyer he was fiddling with, "Seeing what I can salvage off it that might be useful."

"Do you know what you are doing?" The question was asked lightly as Jason looked up and shrugged.

"Not really, but I think it would be like watching porn," he smiled, "you know exactly what is once you see it Commander."

Jackson laughed as he reached down and grabbed a handful of servos, wires and such and ripped them out with an almighty yank before handing the assorted ball of electronics to him, "We got to get a move on little brother, you can play around with the techno stuff later."

A long suffering look between the two of them ended as he balled up the mess and tucked in a spare pouch as they followed the trio of Alliance soldiers over to the tram and waited for it to start up. Though it was about that time he noticed that Alenko was staring at them as he nudged his twin off to the side of the tram and made sure it looked like he was helping his twin repair the damage to his omni-tool, while muttering through clenched teeth loud enough for Jackson to hear and not the others.

"Shit, we need a plan," Jason furrowed his brow as he noticed that Jackson's omni-tool did have some minor damage as he began fixing it, "either he or she needs to trigger the beacon and without Williams to set it off, how will that happen?"

"Why not both?" Jackson was busy swapping an ammo mod out of his assault rifle for a different one while speaking out of the side of his mouth.

"How?" Jason was wondering if Alenko would be dumb enough to approach it before Jackson shrugged.

"Me dufus."

**Line Break **

The tram arrived at the station as they quickly dismounted, Jason having launched a Throw at a nearby Geth Shock Trooper that had appeared from behind a stack of crates while Alenko went to the first bomb. There were easily a few dozen Geth on the entire tram station as he idly wondered if he could've asked if there had been any spare armor laying around before he simply covered himself in a barrier and told Jackson to stay in cover, he had work to do.

**2:07**

"Now that looks like a real nasty piece of work," Jane ignored the giant peering over her shoulder as she set to work on the delicate act of disarming said device, which looked like a Turain demolish charge times infinity.

"If this thing goes off, we can forget all about Eden Prime," she cursed as hostile fire pinged off the side of the wall a few feet above her head, "would someone please shoot the robots?"

"Copy that Commander," Alenko, a pretty boy that she would have so chased after if it wasn't for the fact that she had married the man she loved, currently a few meters away tossing a grenade as a follow-up to his last shot, "we'll have them taken care of shortly."

As she was elbow deep in wires, delicate computer parts and what she was knew had to be parts of the actual explosive itself, a thought came to her as she glanced over their newest addition to the ground team.

"Hey Juggernaut," said giant turned to face her while taking a break from firing, "where did the other one go off to?"

"One second," he rattled off before activating his omni-tool, "Yo Jason, ya there brother?"

"Hold on," a distinct crack of a pistol followed by the sounds of an exploding Geth rocket trooper (she had gotten real familiar with that sound since these two had shown up) before the calmer tones of Jason returned, "sorry, just disarmed the last bomb, what's taking the Commander so long anyway?"

**1:48**

"As in the last of four or the one closest to you?" Jackson asked as Jane furiously glanced between the bomb in front of her and the glowing omni-tool adorning Jackson's wrist.

"Fourth," the answer was quick as another Geth platform resembling a flatten hunk of scrap metal soared overhead, "had to slip around behind them while you guys had their attention, took out the Prime before it could fire the cannon it had at you guys."

"Was wondering why that one dropped," John's voice drifted over, "when the Hell did you get over there anyway?"

"Charged," a brief pause, "is that bomb disarmed yet?"

**1:31**

"Not yet little brother," Jackson waved his omni-tool over the gutted contents in front of her as she snapped off a biotic Warp at an approaching trooper, "any advice?"

"Punch the glowing orb with all the wires sticking out of it," the answer was short and to the point, "just make it quick because I'm bringing the party to you guys in about ten seconds."

**1:27**

"Is that actually going to work?" Jane asked as she began to furiously slice wires into her hacking module to begin the process of deactivating the bomb the old fashioned way.

**CRUNCH! SPZZZTTTTTT-AGGGHHH!**

A large fist imbedded in the main processor unit of the bomb caused her a moment of concern as she looked up at Jackson with an arched brow as he simply ripped out what he hadn't smashed and dusted his hands off, John and Alenko appearing next to her.

"That was it?" She scowled as she packed up her equipment before a panting Jason came diving over cover with a large weapon in his arms as Jackson cocked his head to the side.

"Where'd you get that?" Alenko asked as John looked over the edge of the guardrail before reaching for his grenade pouch, trouble no doubt as Jason cleared his throat.

"From those guys over there," he hunched over the weapon, "that are coming this way real quick."

Jackson peered over to have a look as well and ducked before a rocket could take his head off, "You said you were bringing a party bro, all I see is a bunch of angry robots coming towards us, no doubt they want their toy back."

"Exactly," Jane watched as Jason appeared to messing around with the weapon interface or something as Alenko paled after he got his own look at what was coming, "once I get this bad boy working it'll be a party."

"Uh hate to break your bubble, but didn't you kill that one already?" The noise of a rocket impacting into their cover was deafening as Jason took a long calculating look out over the railing before turning to his brother.

"That would be the rest of its friends," Jason hefted the large weapon as something on it began to whine a high pitch sound, "hmm, it seems they have also called in reinforcements as well."

Jane was stunned as she watched over a dozen towering Geth platforms with nearly forty smaller ones come stomping across the tram station in droves as she turned to her husband with a handful of grenades in her hand as she handed them to him as it turned out he didn't have any left.

"I wish Williams was here, then it'd be a real party." Jackson commented as opened fire with his rifle.

(Elsewhere, a Chief Gunnery Sergeant sneezed violently at that moment in time.)

"Should we fall back?" Alenko sounded worried as he opted for his heavy pistol and igniting a biotic flare in his other hand.

John answered with a grunt as he lifted his rifle and scored a headshot on a smaller unit as Jackson mimicked him in perfect synch from the other end of the railing.

"Nah, you might want to cover your ears though," Jason answered before a biotic barrier sprang up around him as he stood to his full height and lifted the Geth weapon, "this is gonna be loud."

**Line Break**

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Jason groaned as he lifted his middle finger up at his brother while he remained where he was, curled up on his side as he felt the medi-gel repair most of the damage caused by the massive amount of recoil generated by what he was sure had to be an early model Geth Spitfire.

Of course the gun had crapped out after a few hundred rounds of easily controlled fire that mowed down a majority of the advancing Geth easily before it hiccupped a few times and then began to pour out what amounted to Big Mommas for about fifty seconds. Each shot had driven him back a few inches before the gun gave one last shot, all six barrels discharging at once, a sure sign of catastrophic weapon failure now that he thought about it, and that final recoil had blasted him backwards about six feet.

Into a metal wall. An unforgiving metal wall. Needless to say that it hurt even with all of his upgrades and whatnot, though he knew it would have killed a regular person.

A cracked rib at the worst and a mild case of having the wind knocked out of him for sure and he rolled over onto his knees and pulled himself up with the offered hand, wincing mildly as he regained his balance and looked around.

"You okay little brother?" Jackson had a right to be worried as he waved another omni-tool scan over him as he walked over to where the other three were having a campfire over something.

"Yeah, stings just a bit though," he looked over at the smoldering remains of the weapon and groaned, "I could have made her sing for me."

"Well next time just let go of the weapon before it kills you okay?" Jackson grinned as they reached both Commanders and Alenko, "He checks out, all systems copasetic."

"That was a reckless move," John was the first to speak up as he stalked forward and stopped about a foot away from Jason, who noticed that he was a few inches shorter than the esteemed Commander John Shepard, "don't do it again next time."

"Copy that." Jason nodded as he glanced over at the Prothean beacon sitting on the far edge of the spaceport and walked closer to it.

He stopped a safe distance away, meaning the supply crate he hacked in about five seconds as he watched Alenko begin to radio for the Normandy as Jackson stepped closer to the beacon in mock awe, not that anyone other than Jason could see his face as it all happened suddenly.

"WOAH! A LITTLE HELP HERE!" Everyone turned to see Jackson getting pulled towards the alien device as Jason made a show of tripping over the crate in front of him as Alenko was too far away to do anyone any good.

John and Jane Shepard turned as one and reached Jackson, grabbing an arm each and using their combined strength to toss him a safe distance away before they ended up in the powerful pull of the device as Jason reached where Jackson and Alenko were, clutching his sore side mostly for show, but they actually hurt.

"What the Hell!?" Alenko shouted as he watched the scene unfold before him.

The pulsing light grew brighter before it was snuffed out, followed shortly by a loud explosion as Jason found himself flying through the air again, but this time he found himself buried under the comatose form of Commander John Shepard with Alenko's boot in his face.

No one moved for several seconds before a pained groaned was heard, "Oh I think I broke something."

"You and me both," Alenko remarked as he sat up with a pained hiss and checked the vitals of both commanders while hailing the Normandy on his com unit, "this turned into a real clusterfuck."

"Yep," Jason groaned as he rolled over onto his side and clambered to his feet, "you know that we came here for a little less excitement?"

"That so?" Alenko replied as he got to his own feet.

A roaring was heard overhead as the Normandy in all her glory could be seen swooping in low for pick up as Jackson lifted the unconscious body of John Shepard over his shoulder and groaned, "Oh I am going to feel that in the morning."

"Shut up," Jason said as he helped Alenko lift Jane up, her arm pulled around his neck as Alenko mirrored his actions and began walking towards the ship, "I hope they are okay after that."

"Mhhmm, John, your too rough with the kitty." The quiet murmur came from none other than the fabled Commander Jane Shepard as Jason and Alenko shared a long look.

"We shall never speak of this."

"On the pain of death."

…..

"A little harder John."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Captain Anderson took the sight of both of his protégés unconscious, a wounded Turain Spectre, one Corporal Richard Jenkins in a body bag and three extra people onboard his ship all in stride as he ushered they to the med bay to deposit both of the Commanders under the care of one Dr. Karin Chakwas before he ordered the three newcomers up to the Com Room for a debriefing.

Jackson was the first to make a comment as he took in the view of the large room with a long whistle, "Nice ship pal, how far you going?"

"The Citadel for a mission critical debriefing," Jason had to resist the urge to squirm under the look David Anderson was giving them, Ashley was hopelessly fidgeting, "which leaves me at a crossroads as to what to do with you three."

"Oh, you can drop me and that other one who looks like me off at the next hospitable planet, preferably with a bar and a beach," Jackson paused before giving Ashley a long slow look from head to toe before turning back to Captain Anderson, "second thought, you can keep the one who looks like me and drop me off with Miss Universe over here instead."

**SMACK!**

Having just delivered a potent gibsmack to the back of his head, Jason sighed as Captain Anderson arched an eyebrow, Ashley had turned to look up at Jackson with a scowl on her face as her stance indicated that she was mildly upset before returning to her original position of parade rest.

"Sorry about that sir," Jason figured that throwing an honorific in wouldn't give a worse impression than what Jackson was giving, "seems that Eden Prime wasn't the perfect place for a new start that we had originally thought."

Anderson nodded his head, "Tell me what happened."

From there, the fabricated cover story of what happened since Sovereign had arrived, witnessing Saren attack Nihlus, running into both Shepard's, the bombs and the beacon in order came out in a pretty flawless manner, Jason had decided to keep the video file of Saren committing the deed a secret for now because his omni-tool was a mess from an sabotage attack. Jackson had chimed in with a few words here and there, Ashley providing enough background information and validating a few points as well.

Captain Anderson simply stood there listening and taking it all in, asking the occasional question every now and then before he nodded his head and turned to Ashley.

"With our ground team cut short we can use your skill and expertise Chief," he waved a hand to silence her complaints before he continued, "your testimony in what happened will also be invaluable once we arrive, please check with our MO before you get settled in."

She saluted smartly before performing an about face and marched out as Jason got a sudden sinking feeling as Captain Anderson turned to face the pair of them with an unreadable look on his face.

"Tell me gentlemen," his voice carried quite well even though he was speaking in soft tones, "I have a critically wounded Spectre in my medical bay next to the best soldiers Humanity has ever seen before unconscious after being dragged into an energy field by a millennia old Prothean beacon, so the question remains, what do I do with the two of you?"

"Uh, well you see," Jackson shrugged, "we had no plans other than starting over and then this happened."

"Starting over? Have something to hide about your pasts?" The question made the realization on how serious the situation was sink in as Jason stepped forward.

"Our business is our own, it has nothing to do with what happened, because if it did trust me, I would have brought a much bigger gun if it involved the Geth and a Turain Spectre," Jason answered as he held eye contact with Captain Anderson, "we aided in their mission and brought them back alive, any questions?"

Captain Anderson merely blinked before glancing between the two of them, "No, that will be all for now, please check with our Medical Officer on Deck Two."

Jackson gave a two fingered salute as Jason simply nodded and walked to the door as they walked into the CIC, glancing at the galaxy map before taking the stairs down one level too Deck Two where they found themselves in front of the medical bay door.

"Think we should go in and see the good doctor?" Jackson asked, the mental feedback from the false memories associated with anything remotely related to medical facilities evident as Jason simply shook his head and stalked over to the mess kitchen.

**Line Break**

"Hey, Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty are now awake," Jackson laughed as he waved the two dazed looking individuals over to the table as he reached over and punched in the commands for the auto-chef to whip something up, "have to warn you though, the food sucks balls though."

Jason shrugged as he continued to eat the gray paste in front of him, he had no choice in order to replenish the energy used up by his biotics he would have to eat this foul crap as both weary Commanders dropped into a set of chairs.

"Coffee," the groan came from John as he cradled his head in both hands gingerly, "chow, in that order."

"You got it Bossman," Jackson said as he bounded over to the auto-chef and plucked up a set of trays and slid them across the table before grabbing a pair of mugs and watching the black sludge ooze into them, "I have to warn you, it is terrible."

Jane simply grabbed her mug and downed it one long pull before setting it back down on the table in front of her, "Years of practice."

Jason shrugged as he continued to idly tinker with the assorted mass of Geth parts in front of him to pass the time, he had fixed his omni-tool already and reviewed the video file to make certain that it was intact, but he had kept it to himself. With a valuable piece of evidence intact, he knew that it would be a gamble if the information Tali would have didn't pan out, as a last resort instead of exhibit A.

Most of the Geth parts had proven to be useless, but he had siphoned some useful bits of data, along with the recorded information on that Geth weapon he had used before it blew up while he was still holding it, but he filed away some of the more prevalent data for later as he examined what was left of his armor, not to mention Jackson's as well. They were completely and utterly shredded with no chance of repairing, it would cost far less time, money and materials to simply scrap what was left and purchase new sets of armor. Then again Jason knew for a fact that if they managed to land a place on the crew, getting new things would be a real breeze as they traveled around the galaxy in search of Saren.

"How you two feeling?" Jason asked as he watched a liquid gallon of coffee disappear between the two while Jackson kept sending refills their way.

"Rough, worst headache ever." John muttered as he shoveled food into his mouth as fast as he could as his wife nodded her head in agreement.

Jason heard someone walking towards them and he spotted the profile of Dr. Karin Chakwas out of the corner of his eye as she approached the table and scowled down at who he assumed was him and Jackson.

"I hear that you two were also part of the ground team?" Her tone revealed that she wasn't having any argument.

"More like dragged into a fight for our rugged good looks, charming personalities and naïve ways," Jackson cheerfully replied before he took notice of her as his eyes narrowed, "are you a doctor by chance?"

"That is correct, Dr. Chakwas of this ship and I heard that you two were injured," she keyed in her omni-tool, "off to the medical bay for tests you two, last thing I need is stubbornness from anyone else."

Part of their elaborate cover story was to act in a specific way around what amounted to the escaped lab rat cliché, this they had agreed on as Jackson dropped the smile on his face and turned slowly to face Jason, dramatically drawing it out.

"Jason," everyone else in the mess turned to watch the scene, "calm down little brother, just put the knife down."

Jason was sitting rigid in his seat, a small technician utility cutter clutched in one hand while his other hand rested on his thigh next to his pistol, everyone noticing the abrupt change in his behavior as everyone went dead silent, a sneeze down in the cargo bay could be heard from here.

"No, no, no, no, no," he muttered as he felt his biotics flare up erratically, thanks to the amazing detail in creating his psych, he could trigger a panic attack without losing control as Dr. Chakwas slowly backed away, "no more tests, no more, no more."

"Easy little brother," Jackson said as he slowly inched his way towards him, hands out where they could easily be seen, "there are no more tests anymore, just put the knife down alright."

John and Jane had scooted back in their seats, fully intent on either jumping out of the way or attacking him as he woodenly turned to face his approaching twin, "No more tests?"

"No more buddy," Jackson smiled as he gently pulled the cutter out of his hand, sending a wary glance at Dr. Chakwas and the others, "no one here is going to hurt you, okay?"

Jason didn't respond as he got up and walked over to the elevator and hit the console command to summon the elevator, "I need to be alone now."

Once the doors slid shut, he let out a sigh and cocked his head to the side before something dawned on him.

The elevators really were slow as expected.

**Line Break**

"Alright, want to tell me what that was about?" Jackson had to avoid the grimace as he found himself faced with the wrath of Commander John and Jane Shepard, Dr. Chakwas, Lt. Alenko and Ashley Williams.

Inwardly cursing his twin who was no doubt cackling madly in the cargo hold or something as he scratched the back of his head and slouched on the edge of the table.

"Bad experiences leave all kinds of scars," he sighed as the others watched his every move, "even the kinds you can't see."

"Is he mentally stable?" Captain Anderson appeared from thin air like a ghost as Jackson turned to face him, having heard him with his sensitive hearing, but acting surprised nonetheless before he scowled at the older man.

"Watch it pal that is my brother you are talking about." He growled before Dr. Chakwas stepped forward with a concerned expression on her face.

"I can see evidence of medical scars on you and your brother, nothing to do with medical recovery procedures," that took the wind out of everyone's sails as Jackson schooled his features to reveal nothing, "are both of you biotic?"

He crossed his arms and shook his head, "Naw, just Jason, you have to understand he is slightly uncomfortable around doctors and such, I'm not as bad, but whatever you do, don't sneak up on either one of us with a syringe, definitely not Jason, it'll be the last thing you do."

"What kind of fear of needles drives a fully grown man that crazy?" Ashley Williams butted her head in as Jackson gave her a mild look of amusement.

"The kind where your worst nightmare imaginable happens every single day." Jackson uncrossed his armed and shrugged off his shirt, balling it up and tossing it into his chair.

Several gasps of shock reached his ears as he stepped closer to Dr. Chakwas as he spread his arms away from his body, "Take the scan, it'll be easier than explaining."

Dr. Chakwas gave him a questioning look before looking at Captain Anderson for permission as she received her confirmation as she raised her omni-tool and scanned him from head to toe.

The stunned look on her face was enough to curb the passive-aggressive looks on everyone's face as she did a wonderful impression of a fish, glancing back and forth between him and her omni-tool, muttering things under her breath that everyone could hear, "can't be right," "that isn't possible," "insane."

This continued several times before she pulled a small scalpel out of a coat pocket and approached him cautiously, "Any qualms with donating a little blood?"

Jackson took it from her and shook his head, "Not at all doc."

With that he made a deep cut across the palm of his left hand, easily drawing blood as it began dripping on the floor, earning confused and startled looks from those present before he lifted the injured side of his hand out where it could be seen.

"Not at all." He knew the looks of shock, disbelief and awe on the faces in front of him as he knew the damaged flesh was knitting itself back closed right in front of them as he wiped his bloody hand on a napkin while returning the scalpel to her.

"I see," Dr. Chakwas answered as she examined his hand, taking a few blood samples, checking the results and pinching the bridge of her nose, "someone else scan him and inform me of what you find."

Alenko was the one to react first as he waved his hand over Jackson and promptly stared dumbfounded at the results before his very eyes, "How?"

"Would someone clue us in here?" Jane asked as she walked over to where Dr. Chakwas was attempting to facepalm and sound exasperated at the same time.

"Before you stands the pinnacle of human evolution with cutting edge medical technology, genetic modifications and biological upgrades that make every single person on this ship inferior to him in every way." Dr. Chakwas looked up as she continued her monologue, "The evidence proves that he is what Alliance R&D would dream about in a soldier, it doesn't surprise me that he and his brother, who I am beginning to see a disturbing pattern with now that I think about it, why they never needed proper medical attention to begin with because they simply don't need it."

Jackson simply reached over and pulled a chair over for her to sit down in, which she gratefully accepted as Captain Anderson walked over and ran a scan with his omni-tool, pretty much everyone else did.

"How is this possible son?" He sounded wary, "Are you and your brother some Alliance Special Operations we stumbled across?"

"Let me finish David," heads turned to face the good doctor again as she let out a long sigh, "it would take well over a decade for even half of these improvements to take effect on a living subject, genetic modification takes a long time to even take effect after the body adapts to it successfully, what you are looking at isn't something cooked up in a medical facility somewhere with the resources of the Alliance."

John let out a long whistle once he got the results to his omni-tool, "Knew there was something about these two, but damn," he looked over at Jackson with a look of grudging respect, "Hell of a thing to volunteer for son, I have to buy you a drink someday."

Jackson visibly cringed as he donned his shirt, "Never had the honor of volunteering."

Stunned silence reigned as Dr. Chakwas nodded her head, "Exactly and if my readings are correct, before you stands a heavily developed ten year old human male."

Ashley Williams made a sound best not described in public, "I think your scanner took a dive then doc, you never can trust Alliance med tech to get anything right."

"It's true," Alenko said as he furiously typed away at his own omni-tool, "I've got the same readings, he really is no more than ten years old, which means he never volunteered for this program, he…..was…"

"Grown from a test tube as a freak of nature for the sake of quenching one man's instantiable curiosity after being cloned from perfected genetic material?" Jackson reeled off as he leaned back into his earlier posture, "If you guessed correctly, take the two hundred dollars and pass go."

"That can't be possible," Jane muttered as she turned to face Captain Anderson, "there is no way the Alliance would ever do something like this!"

"Whoever said it was the Alliance?" Jackson laughed as he shrugged his shoulders at the looks he was getting, "We still don't have a clue who they were to be honest, private human interest group of some kind, but we kind of blew that place to kingdom come."

"That means you and your brother," the color abruptly drained from the good doctor's face, "oh my, that means…"

"If Juggernaut over here is the epitome of soldiering perfection, then Jason is something else entirely with his biotics," Jane Shepard shuddered as she traded looks with her husband, "this is not what I woke up to after that mind trip from the beacon."

"Shit," Ashley summed up eloquently as she shifted her weight on the balls of her feet before giving Jackson a look, "so we got an amped up super soldier and his overpowered biotic double running around as the offshoot of some sick experiment?"

Jackson simply nodded as Captain Anderson stepped forward with a hand outstretched, "We'll find the people responsible for this and we'll make them pay."

"Not these people Cap," he sighed, "these are the kind of people who are very well connected with the kind of fuck you power that can make you disappear from existence, no questions asked, in fact we would like it very much if no one knew about us."

John Shepard gave him a brief look, "You managed to save our asses, so you have my silence."

Jane nodded in consent with her husband, "Mine as well."

Ashley Williams gave him a short nod, "Of course, no offense I hope?"

Jackson shook his head, "None taken, but you might want to watch it around Jason, he can be kind of sensitive about that kind of stuff."

Alenko simply gave him a somber look, "How powerful is your brother?"

It was too easy to look downright terrified as he swallowed audibly for his audience to hear, "Very, never under any circumstance piss him off, I am begging you at least give me enough time to vacate the planet before you do."

"That bad?" Dr. Chakwas asked as she typed on her omni-tool.

Time to move in for the kill, "Once he broke out of his bonds, he destroyed the facility we were at, wiping out every single guard, scientist and person before collapsing half of a mountain on top of it using only his biotics without an amp."

Jaws were leaving dents in the floor as a general, "Wwwwwhhhhhhaaaaatttt?" could be heard, but he was on a roll.

"Then there was the time he kicked a Thresher Maw's ass about a year back, bare handed mind you because it scarred the living shit out him, also melted his very first omni-tool come to think of it, but you'll be fine if you don't aggravate him, attempt to subdue him, drug him or incapacitate him in any way or form you'll be fine," Jackson scratched the underside of his chin as well before he nodded to himself, "but he is amazing with tech as well as anything that goes boom, so a plus I think?"

Captain Anderson sighed as he reached over and snagged a cup of coffee, grimacing at the taste as he pounded the whole thing in one pull, "This is going to be a real headache explaining to the brass."

"Well shit," Alenko sighed before he suddenly went rigid, "where did your brother go anyway?"

"Eh, someplace quiet no doubt, he doesn't like cramped places very much, so no doubt he'll in the cargo bay," he gave a worried look over to Captain Anderson, "there is one on this ship right?"

"Of course, deck four, right outside the elevator," Captain Anderson suddenly looked apprehensive, "why?"

"Nothing, as long as nobody bothers him, he'll be fine, just needs to sort things out himself," Jackson smiled as he wandered back over to the auto-chef, "anyone else hungry, because I am starving over here."

"Joker," Captain Anderson said in a loud tone of voice, "send a notification to all section heads via private messaging to avoid irritating our latest addition to the crew, who is somewhere down in the Cargo Bay."

"**Aye, aye Captain, sending a ship wide message to avoid messing with the overpowered freak of nature so as to avoid dying painful deaths, got it**." The voice cut out after that as Jackson raised an eyebrow at the ceiling.

"Hey Joker is it, you do know there is more than one colossal freak of nature on board right?" He chuckled darkly after hearing the sounds of the ship intercom being hastily turned off.

The looks he was receiving clearly stated that he couldn't harm the pilot as he raised a hand for peace, "Relax, just messing with him is all."

John let out a laugh, "On top of everything else, the Council is gonna love hearing this."

Jackson smiled as he placed another tray down in front of him, "So what happened with the beacon anyway, you both got knocked on your asses."

**Line Break**

If there was one thing Jason discovered about the Normandy, it was the fact that there was more than two areas of the ship accessible via the elevator, between the mess deck/medical bay was a crew quarters deck filled with more sleeper pods, public restrooms, recreation facility and all of the life pods. He wandered around for a minute before he went on his merry way to the cargo/engineering deck where things made far more sense, surprised when there wasn't the familiar hulking M-35 Mako dominating the far corner of the cargo bay.

A short circuit of engineering and the rest of the cargo bay completed his tour before he found a quiet corner to have to himself for now.

Mission success, both of the Commanders got the beacon full blast, Nihlus was still alive and right about now he had Jackson upstairs revealing a small portion of their "past" so to speak that would make it much more easier to integrate into the crew of the Normandy as he started rooting around at the Requisitions Officer terminal to see what they had for gear. After about half an hour, it turned out to be jack shit, nothing even worth the credits, so he refrained from buying anything as he wandered down into Engineering to have a quick look around without disturbing the crew.

Granted by the time they noticed he was even there, it was after he made his presence known seconds before he left, having spotted a message sent from a familiar pilot to Adams' omni-tool as he marched over to the elevator and hit the button.

Much to his surprise he found John Shepard standing in the lift with a relaxed posture as he waved him forward, "Come on in, we're heading up to the briefing room for an all hands debrief."

Jason nodded as he glanced to his left once the door slid shut and the elevator began moving slowly, "How's the head?"

"Eh, hurts like the morning after my wedding night but I'll live," John shook his head, "got a really weird dream though, hopefully it isn't permanent."

"Dream?" Jason was making idle conversation to pass the time and to sound interested as the doors finally opened as they headed to the stairs.

"Yeah, doesn't make sense either, but thanks for dragging our asses back to the ship by the way." John chuckled as they began climbing the stairs, passing a random crewmember who saluted and went on his way.

The briefing room was filled with members of the ill-fated ground team, minus Jenkins and Nihlus of course, but it included Jackson, Ashley and Jason while Captain Anderson was standing in the middle of the room at parade rest, his natural go to posture it seemed as Jason took a seat next to his brother.

"This original goal of this mission was to test the stealth systems of the Normandy while gathering a Prothean beacon from Eden Prime without raising any concern," he paused for effect before continuing, "it turns out that Saren Arterius working in what appears to be command of the Geth, which have never been seen outside the Veil in three hundred years, along with a highly advanced starship several times larger than anything ever on record doing things that are impossible mind you and the agenda seemed that he wanted to destroy the beacon and the surrounding colony rather than take it for himself."

"Which was insane," Jane said as eyes turned towards her, "he could have easily taken the damn thing and been long gone before we ever arrived at the spaceport."

"Correct," Anderson said as he began pacing back and forth, "which leaves the question why he left it behind and why he attempted to murder an old friend of his in cold blood."

"Turain turned his back to someone he trusted," Jason spoke up as everyone started giving him looks, "or so he thought, any word on his condition?"

"Dr. Chakwas says he'll pull through, requiring months of therapy, corrective surgery and recovery due to the fact he was shot point blank in the back of the head," Anderson replied as he stopped pacing and turned to face the twins, "which leaves us with you two."

A glance at Jackson confirmed that they knew, enough for now, as Jason looked back up at Anderson without so much as batting an eye, "Yes?"

He took a deep breath before continuing, "Your brother told us about your past, mind boggling in some aspects, but," he sighed while breaking his stance and looked up, "the evidence proves otherwise that there are some truth to what he had to say and for that, you two have been placed in classified clandestine cover as auxiliary combat team additions along with Chief Williams to avoid any suspicion, there are going to be very few people outside this room that know about your real past."

Jackson coughed into his hand, "Bro, we like really need this, it's a fresh start and we'll be working on a super top secret ship to boot where they can't find us."

"Those bastards had some pretty deep pockets Jackson," Jason shot back, "they can pay off just about damn near anyone they wanted too, odds are they even got people in high places."

"It beats running around Omega to avoid getting captured." Jason sighed as he pretended to acknowledge his twin's logic as he turned back to the issue at hand.

"You want something," Jason stated as he looked at Anderson with a level glare, "what is it."

"Jackson willingly volunteered a medical scan, along with a few blood samples to donate to the Alliance R&D," Anderson paused for effect, "I think it would be in your best interest to undergo the same medical testing as your brother, mostly to help with convincing the brass to provide the two of you with proper backgrounds and such."

Jason lit up with a biotic flare, a move that caused several people to flinch, sans Jackson and surprisingly Anderson for that matter as he stood up to his full height and stalked closer until he was less than a foot away from the older man, eye to eye.

A brief glance around the room showed a handful of tense individuals, clutched sidearms, faint biotic aura emanating from two people watching on, the telltale grip on a combat knife and everyone was waiting in baited breath as he turned back to face Anderson. This fell well inside the parameters of the plan they had cooked up, in fact it was even better as he crossed his arms and put on a scrutinizing expression, one he'd normally reserve for used car dealership salesmen and drunk morons as he spoke.

"I have a few rules…"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"This is an outrage! I demand action be taken for this attack!" Jason was doing his best to avoid punching the honorary Ambassador Udnia as he began his infamous rant to the Council over the hologram projector sitting in his office.

"We're sorry Ambassador, but we cannot involve a full scale war in the Traverse without fearing the repercussions from the Terminus System." Jason pretty much zoned out after that as he stood next to the others standing on the far side of the office on the balcony overlooking the Citadel in all of its glory.

Jackson wasn't doing much better, in fact he had fallen asleep standing up while the dark glasses he was wearing hid that little fact from anyone watching him, save for the fact anyone close enough could hear his soft snoring.

Soon enough the great and terrible ranting and raving of an upset politician ended as Udnia turned to face Captain Anderson, going on about bringing an entire crew, skewed facts and such before he nudged Jackson in the ribs once John waved for everyone to follow him out of the office after talking to Anderson.

"Wasn't me," Jackson said as he quickly got his bearings and started walking, "did I miss anything bro?"

Rolling his eyes, Jason gave him a look that clearly said that he was an idiot before they reached the rest of the team formed up in a huddle outside of the office.

"Alenko and Williams will be accompanying us to the Council Chambers in the event the Council asks for firsthand accounts, that and we don't the data to prove you two even exist in the Alliance, that and you will both need some proper equipment and armor," John said as he waved his omni-tool towards them as the signifying beep of transaction was heard, "I've taken the liberty of giving you both enough to buy decent kits and some personal supplies for now, remain available in the event we need you."

"Copy that Bossman," Jackson chirped as he examined his omni-tool and let out a whistle, "though I'd like to point out that we are not a couple charity cases here."

"Good thing I didn't donate to charity then," the smirk was evident even in his voice, "I want the two of you suited up and ready to go by the time we hopefully get done dealing with the Council."

Jason simply nodded as the others marched off towards the Presidium as he turned to Jackson with raised eyebrow, "Lower Markets?"

"Lower Markets." Jackson smiled as they headed out.

**Line Break**

Turned out it was a much longer walk around the Citadel than the games had ever given it credit for (These boots are not meant for long distance!) and they attracted more than a few odd stares from the people, well aliens, along their route.

"Why are you so slow?" Jason watched as Jackson attempted to yell at the ceiling of the elevator with an exaggerated face before he checked his omni-tool for the map app, not even mentioning the fact he had downloaded every single schematic of the Citadel directly into his memory.

"Yelling at it will not make it faster," Jason sighed as he discovered that Tetris still existed in this universe as he started a game, "I said we should take the stairs."

Jackson whined dramatically, "But there are like a thousand floors between us and the markets, it would take forever."

Rather than answer, Jason continued to tap away at his omni-tool, really getting into his game as the elevator made like six stops, several different humans, asari, turian, volus, that one hanar and even three batarians, who took one long look at Jackson and decided not to say anything, never mind the fact that both of them were sporting casual Alliance garb and a few weapons before they managed to reach their destination.

"Next time we take a rapid transit instead," Jackson declared as they stepped out of the elevator, Jason having to save his game for later as he followed, map in hand, "alright where too?"

This was mostly a show for anyone watching them, with Udnia working hand in hand with Cerberus and being one of the people who had been informed of their history and backgrounds, they knew it wouldn't be long before they had to worry about some particular goons showing up or other species taking an interest in them as well, not to mention that Saren would be placing a kill order out on anyone involved with Eden Prime that could have evidence against him. Not that it wasn't too hard to act like tourists on their first visit (which it kind of was) as they wandered around taking in the sights, chatting up with Avina, getting lost twice, finding about six fast food joints that had human food ("They have cheeseburgers? Alright!") and nine other vendors never shown in any of the games.

They managed to find one vendor that had a suit of armor for Jackson, granted the vendor was Krogan and waited all of three seconds before tossing several hundred pounds of armor over the counter and told them to find someone else who could alter it for him at a very low price.

The shields were decent, maybe an upgrade in the near feature could handle that, but the armor rating was beyond most Alliance Heavy armors, so all they needed was someone with the right equipment to alter a Krogan set of armor for a human.

Turned out that they managed to find one, an older Turian who took one look at Jackson and thanked his spirits that he never fought a human that big all those years ago before setting up the delicate operation of altering the armor. It took just over an hour to alter the armor to where Jackson could wear it, having to make new armor from the elbows up and from the knees down to fit his human limbs, but the effect was well worth it after they wrestled a human grade helmet to fit on the rest of it. Another thing this particular vendor had was Krogan grade weapons, something that surprised Jason as he asked to see what he had on hand, earning an amused chuckle from the vendor as he handed over what amounted to an early model Revenant that had seen far better days.

The amused chuckle turned into a surprised gasp when Jackson easily hefted the weapon one handed and fired off a burst inside the firing range, commenting on how light the recoil felt and that the weapon had terrible accuracy, but it had far better stopping power than anything else, so he paid for it in full. Things got even more hilarious as Jason discovered that the vendor also had several Krogan grade sidearms and a few shotguns, sadly none of them were Claymore 300 models, but the Armageddon Mk VI would do for now as they left the vendor feeling like he had been robbed.

"Now, do we find you a suit of armor yet or go get some upgrades?" Jackson asked after he placed his new rifle on his back, the default color of his armor was dark blue for now as Jason nodded towards a familiar salarian shopkeeper.

"Going to need the armor anyway, might as well started here," Jason smirked as he stepped up to the counter and smiled, "You wouldn't happen to have human armor by chance?"

"Ah, welcome to Morlan's famous shop, if you look here you'll see we have several suits in stock…"

**Line Break**

"Holy Mother of Christ," Jason turned to see John and Jane Shepard with the rest of the ground team spread out behind him as they took in the sight before them, "what did you guys do? Rob a bank just to pay for some equipment?"

Jason was wearing black Light Hoplite Mk II armor with a full helmet, armed with his new shotgun, a Brawler Mk III pistol, a Avenger Mk II assault rifle and a Mantis Mk I sniper rifle on his back as Jackson stood there in his retrofitted suit of Krogan armor with his Revenant Mk 0, his older assault rifle and shotgun for backup and a Punisher MK II sidearm.

"No sir," Jason answered as he tossed his to-go bag of wrappers into the nearest trashcan as Jackson did the same, "just went a little bargain hunting to save you some money."

"Looks like money well spent," Jane laughed as she snatched his drink and took a sip, "seems we got a job to do, you two up for a little assignment?"

The look they both shared caused some of the onlookers to walk slightly faster as they both turned to give Jane matching grins, "What have we got?"

**Line Break**

"Go to Chora's Den she said, it'll be fun she said," Jackson sighed as he felt yet another hand cop a feel even through his armor, "Ashley, quit grabbing my ass."

"It isn't me!" Ashley was like fifteen feet behind him as Jane followed in his wake, "If anything everyone in this place seems more interested in you than me, so that is a plus in my book."

"Boss Lady," Jackson whined as they managed to reach a secluded table occupied by one human, "tell the meanie to stop picking on me already."

"If you kids don't stop complaining I'll send you back to the ship," John muttered as he tapped the guy, Harkin, it turned out on the shoulder, "I've got some questions for you buddy."

"Fuck off," Jason rolled his eyes and picked the man up by his throat one handed before giving him a stern look as Harkin cleared his throat and looked back at John, "call off the attack dog already, jeez."

Once Harkin began talking, Jason wandered over to the side of the bar to watch from a secluded corner, giving the dancer next to him a short look before going back to his overwatch position as the others were either crowded around Harkin getting answers or talking to that Turian general about straightening out. The place was seedy, assorted flavors of booze, smoke, drugs and other such trade was being passed around, it was crowded, stuffy and noisy as Hell as he heard another familiar yelp from his twin getting molested again as he headed for the door once the others left as well.

"Never again shall I enter such establishments of squander and refugee to be pawed and defiled as an object of their lust," Jackson pouted as Ashely and Jane shared a brief look before chuckling, "next time can we just run in with guns blazing or something?"

"Doubt it, we need to find this detective that might have a bead on Saren," John paused in his speaking as he narrowed his eyes, "possible contacts front, seven of them, keep your guard up."

Sure enough, a handful of Turain assassins with two Krogan heavy hitters bringing up the rear as they spotted John and Jane and pulled out weapons, so much for an easy stroll.

"Scatter!" The yell came from John as everyone dove for the nearest parts of cover while drawing weapons, Jackson had a shit eating grin on his face as he pulled out his Revenant, both hostile Krogan performing what looked like a confused expression as he yelled, "Say hello to my little friend!"

Gunfire filled the air as Jason simply enshrouded himself with a barrier and charged forward with his shotgun in hand, plowing two of the turians aside as he filled another with two rounds from his double barreled shotgun before charging off in another direction. The crossfire was soon brought to a stalemate once both sides got behind reasonable amounts of cover, up until John de-cloaked ten meters away after his shot took the head off one Krogan as combined biotics from Alenko and Jane slammed the second one into the opposite wall hard enough to break his spine.

With both Krogans gone, the remaining turians were swiftly dealt with as they regrouped near the entrance in order to do a casualty count and come up with a new plan.

"Must've been Saren's boys out to make sure we can't talk," John scowled as he glanced around, "nobody goes anywhere alone from here on out, anyone hit?"

A chorus of negative replies answered him as they quickly looted the still warm corpses for any intel, but finding plenty of credits, weapons and a few armor upgrades not shot to pieces as they moved on to the medical clinic in order to find one Detective Vakarian.

Needless to say, the resulting firefight between five thugs and seven professionals was short and to the point as they managed to watch Garrus pull off a perfect headshot with a pistol and save the good Doctor Michele.

"Spirits," Garrus had a moment of shock as he stared up at Jackson before looking down at Jason, "I didn't know humans got much taller than two meters, this one on the other hand is much smaller."

"Don't let size fool ya, he's the one you have to watch out for," Jackson grinned as he stowed his assault rifle, "biotics and all that."

A round of introductions was concluded, meeting yet another awesome character in the Mass Effect universe was just about as cool as the first, but Jason was more worried about the one they would have to be rescuing soon.

"The Quarian?" Dr. Michele shook her head and took a deep breath to calm down, "She left a few hours ago, heading to Fist in order to get in contact with the ShadowBroker for her own safety."

"Fist isn't working with the ShadowBroker anymore," Jane said as she grabbed a couple units of medi-gel from the dispenser on the wall, "he defected and is now working for Saren."

"Really? That's stupid, even for Fist," she turned back to find Jason less than a foot away and jumped in surprise, "oh you startled me."

"I need a trauma bag, medical equipment for a field medic and as many supplies as I can afford to pay," Jason said as he brought up his omni-tool and looked back at her, "can I get it here?"

"Oh, of course." Dr. Michele lead the way to the storeroom as Jackson let out a chuckle once he noticed that everyone else was on high alert.

"He hates doctors with a passion, but he reads a lot of medical journals and such, so he knows what he is doing," Jackson glanced at Garrus, "don't ask, long story."

Garrus simply closed his mouth as his mandibles twitched and nodded his head as they waited for Jason to return, about ten minutes later he did, with a brand new medic bag attached to his belt as they left the med clinic.

Jason was busy putting things where he could easily find everything and reach it as he paid half an ear to the plan being developed while he handed out spare medi-gel and antibiotics to his twin.

"I'd recommend splitting up to cover more ground faster, but Saren might have more goons to send after us, so we'll stick together in one group, check out C-Sec to see if that Krogan wants to tag along and nail Fist to a wall," the pointed look from his wife made him reconsider his earlier statement, "after we extract the location of the Quarian out of him first, find the Quarian and get the data she has on Saren, any questions?"

"Just one," Jason asked as he stepped forward, "the longer we take to put a team together, the less chance we have to save the Quarian if she is heading too or already at the meeting place with the ShadowBroker, so I volunteer to watch Chora's Den to monitor it for any changes."

Jackson smiled as he reached over and slapped him on the back, "A splendid idea my good fellow, but I like the idea of having a Krogan who can kick some serious ass backing me up as I assault the bad guy's hideout."

"I like it," John said as he turned to face Jason, "stick to the shadows and send any updates that you can, avoid being seen, bug out if things get hairy."

Jason nodded before he turned and melted into the crowd like he'd never been there as Jackson let out an almighty sigh, "Guess I better go make sure he doesn't get in trouble."

"Negative," John said as he watched Jason walk away, "the idea of him tangling with a Krogan that we need on our good side isn't what I had in mind, this way we can have live information being transmitted to us on the condition of Chora's Den."

Garrus chose that moment to pitch in his two cents worth, "Anyone else notice that your medic had more dextro based medical equipment and supplies than levo?"

Eyes turned to Jackson as he found himself on the spot, "Well you see, we've run into quarians before and he has this soft spot for them, mind you he'll probably do something incredibly stupid if he sees the Quarian."

"Not liking that tone Juggernaut," Jane huffed as she continued walking in the direction of C-Sec with the others following behind her, "what are you trying to say?"

"Have you ever noticed how awkward he tends to be?" Jackson was glad that he visor hid the smile covering his face, payback was a bitch as he went off on some fabricated story of woe and anguish as they continued to C-Sec.

**Line Break**

"Goddamn it," Jason cursed as he wiped his nose, "someone is most definitely talking about me."

Shaking that thought, he turned back to watch the front entrance of the esteemed Chora's Den as he switched between watching the door and his omni-tool, which he was using to attempt a hack into the security mainframe of the club. Because he knew that Fist had a shitload of bodyguards, a couple locked doors and a pair of security turrets that would cause the assaulting team a lot of grief before they were destroyed as he decided to even the odds a bit.

Hacking into the secure files of Fist's computer took him all of two minutes, making copies of everything, leaving the function for locking down doors not available in the next half hour, shorting out the turrets and getting a complete headcount of all the employees working under Fist, namely the "security guards" he had on payroll.

Forty-six humans, ten turians, four asari commandos and three Krogan for now, almost half were inside the bar right now while the other half was on their way to the club with heavier weapons and armor, they'd be arriving in the next twenty minutes.

"Jason, what do you see?" The voice in his headpiece belonged to none other than Jane Shepard as he answered.

"All the patrons were kicked out about five minutes, security team of thirty showed up and appear to be locking the place down tight," he glanced at his omni-tool and smiled, "just got done hacking through seven firewalls into Fist's private office, problem is I don't have a location for the Quarian yet."

"Nice," Jackson could be heard now over the com channel, "where are you anyway?"

A glance over at the shuttle transit terminal revealed a familiar team with a hulking Krogan in red standing there readying weapons, "Fifty meters to your right and twelve meters up behind the second ventilation fan."

"Coming to join the party?" Ashley asked with a bit of smirk in her voice.

"Only about half of Fist's security element is here, the rest will be arriving in fifteen minutes," Jason waited for the cussing he could hear from his hiding spot stop before adding, "thought I'd stay here and provide some support if they showed up before you got to Fist."

"Granted, remain on overwatch for now and make sure no one sneaks up on us," John said as he terminated the signal and stepped closer to Chora's Den with the rest of the team in tow, "Jackson, you wanted to charge in guns blazing right? Get the door."

**Line Break**

"Well that was interesting," Jackson chuckled as he wiped a piece of the poor bastard's brain off his shoulder pad as he watched Wrex get an ass chewing from both Commanders, "hey bro we got a location on the Quarian, how copy?"

"You've got the rest of the security element showing up now," that brought the argument to a standstill as everyone scrambled for weapons, "should I engage or head for the Quarian?"

"Quarian, we've got the firepower to handle these guys." John answered as they reached the main room of the club and began firing at the approaching thugs.

Wrex simply shrugged off about half a dozen hits before blasting a thug away at point blank range, watching Jackson mow down another three with his larger assault rifle, "How is a squishy like you able to fire that thing? It's rated for Krogan for a damn good reason."

"Oh you know, I'm just lucky." Jackson laughed as he tossed a grenade into another group of thugs, watching as they scattered once the explosion went off.

**Line Break**

"I spy with my little eye," Jason muttered to himself as he peeked around the corner, "a Krogan, three turians, five humans and four salarians surrounding one Quarian."

It was a bit of a change from only three assassins, but he figured that once the rest of the team showed up, they'd have more than enough firepower to take care of them as he monitored the progress of the team in question, no doubt leaving the shattered remains of Chora's Den behind about now.

"Did you bring it?" He pulled out his shotgun and prepped a sabotage attack on his omni-tool.

"Where's the ShadowBroker? Where's Fist?" He could easily hear the sounds of her modulated voice from where he was hiding.

"They'll be here," Jason had to fight back the growl as he watched the turian reach up and begin patting her down, "where's the evidence?"

**SLAP!**

"No way, the deal's off." Jason smirked as he watched the turian get put in his place, but that changed into a frown once he watched the Krogan turn around with a massive face splitting grin on his face, a knife longer than his arm appearing from thin air.

The good news was that she managed to throw her proximity mine at the closer targets before diving for cover, it was time to make an entrance.

A biotic Charge brought him right in front of the leering Krogan as he traded smiles before blasting him in the face at point blank range, granted his shields had stopped most of the blast as he advanced closer.

"Pick" **Blam! **"On" **Blam! **"Someone" **Blam! **"Else!" **Blam!**

With the fifth shot having caused his shotgun to overheat, the now headless corpse falling over backwards, Jason launched three biotic Lifts as a wave of mass accelerator fire from the other end of the hallway poured into the fight before he noticed something.

One of the humans, standing out of sight to everyone else was armed with a rocket launcher and was currently pointing the weapon in his general direction, no at Tali as he spun on heel and charged towards her, executing a perfect tackle over the one piece of cover in the entire hallway as he expanded his biotic barrier to cover not only himself, but her entire body as well.

**KA-BOOM!**

High pitched ringing in his ears aside, Jason didn't want to move around too much until he heard the last of the gunfire around him finally taper off, recognizing the sounds of armored boots clomping towards him as he pushed himself up to his knees and looked down to see if she was alright.

_Oh damn, _was his only coherent thought as he took in the sight pinned beneath him, surrounded in the simmering biotic energy of his one of a kind barrier.

She was shorter in real life than he thought, but her suit was much softer, not quite as shiny or reflective in the light as he trailed his eyes from the top of her realak, her visor that framed two silver orbs looking up at him unblinkingly, her voice modulator that was blinking in rhythm with her heavy breathing, the shotgun clutched in her arms across her chest as he gently lifted himself a few inches higher, placing a free hand on the ground next to her head for balance as he looked down into her eyes.

"Are you alright?" Jason was surprised that he managed to keep his voice even as he had suddenly found himself mashed against his biggest Mass Effect crush.

"Yes." The answer was short as he let a sigh of relief and sat up so he was sitting on his haunches holding out a hand to her.

She took it and with a slight tug, Jason found himself face to visor with her as he realized that he was still holding her hand, not that he would ever complain, but he slowly let the barrier fade out of existence, earning a strange squirming from Tali as he immediately started running a medical scan over her in worry. Maybe she had been wounded or something, but the scan came back negative, no suit breeches, infections, exposure or allergic reactions whatsoever as he looked back up at her face. Subtle body language and that cute way her head was tilted slightly to the left told him that she was embarrassed, then he remembered how they entangled on the ground holding hands a moment earlier as he idly wondered why she would still be embarrassed.

"D'awwww," now he realized that he had forgotten the rest of the team standing behind him as he felt his cheeks start to heat up, "its love on the battlefield, love true wove?"

The sappy punch line delivered by his twin made him slowly untangle himself and climb to his feet, helping Tali to hers while replacing his weapons and making a show of running another scan over her before turning around, making sure to be looking down as he did to hide the blush on his face.

"No injuries to report here," he sent a glare lethal enough to make any lesser man push up daisies towards his twin, "you were late."

"No changing the subject little brother," the look he was receiving told him exactly how much grief he was going to catch from this, "unless my eyes deceive me, but you went above and beyond the line of duty to make sure our Quarian friend here went unscathed eh?"

The knowing smirk on Jane Shepard's face told another story as Jason fought the blush coming on, now he wished he had paid extra for the tinted visor feature because unlike Tali, his face could be easily seen as he turned back around to face Tali.

"Ignore him, it's what I do," Jason said as he extended a hand, "Jason Brody, consultant for the Alliance and you are?"

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," Tali said as she nervously wrung her fingers together, "thank you for saving my life, even if I have no idea why you did it."

"We're looking for the evidence you had on Saren, anything to do with the attack on Eden Prime, that and these assassins were sent after you." John said as he stepped forward, looking around every which way.

"Fist set me up!" The angry scowled could easily be heard in her voice, "I knew I couldn't trust him!"

"Why would he want you dead Quarian?" The lumbering Krogan in red said as he pushed forward.

"My name is Tali!" Jason arched an eyebrow at that display that usually didn't happen until later as Jane stepped forward with her easy going laid back smile, a natural peacekeeper.

"Now, Tali, do you have any evidence proving Saren is a traitor?" She asked as Wrex backed off for now, largely unimpressed it seemed.

"Yes, but not here, it isn't safe." Tali answered while looking around frantically.

"The Human Embassy would be much safer," Williams pitched in from the back of the group as she smirked at Jason, "getting a little red aren't you?"

Jason arched a brow in her direction, "Our one shot at catching Saren and you would've let it get blown up? Really, what have you done?"

It was childish he knew, but that got her to shut up as everyone piled into the nearest elevator to reach a floor with a rapid transit terminal nearby (not every single elevator had access to the Presidium) so they could leave as Jackson let out an exaggerated sigh.

"So Jason, you never did tell the rest of the gang how you learned a little bit about Quarians..."

It was official, he was going to shoot his own twin. Repeatedly. In the head.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Presenting the evidence that Tali had provided to Udnia was something akin to force feeding raw meat to a vegan without the loaded gun before he made the connection that using the evidence proved it wasn't humanity's fault for Eden Prime and he could rub it in someone else's face for a change, so he was off in politician la-la land scheming up his next harebrained idea.

It was getting a lot harder for him to avoid shooting the scumbag with every passing minute, but what really threw him off was that he and Jackson were asked personally to remain behind for a few minutes so he could talk with them.

As everyone else ran off to the present the evidence to the Council where a later Spectre promotion would occur, Jason found himself looking over the desk of one really sleazy political animal that looked out for number one as he felt Jackson next to him tense up.

"As it is, the two of you fall under Alliance jurisdiction for the duration of your contracts, please note that in order to obtain full compensation for the contract, all medical, psychological and aptitude screening in accordance with Alliance regulations must be carried to the letter," Udnia gave Jason a reproachful look like he was expecting him to argue or fail to understand before he added in a skeptical tone, "is that understood?"

_Yes Commander, I really had to shoot the human ambassador in the face before throwing him out of the building, _Jason schooled his expression to remain the same as he gave Udnia a long scathing glare, _after shoving a grenade down his throat._

"Of course ambassador," he knew he was going to need to shoot, strangle or violently dismember something in the next five minutes or there would be a dead guy in this spoofy office in the next few minutes, "is there anything else?"

Granted he ground the question out to let the little known fact that he really didn't want to be here that even the most dimwitted single cell organism could decipher as Udnia shook his head and wandered over to his desk to work on his terminal for a few moments.

"There is still work to be conducted on your apparent," Udnia paused dramatically for effect, the asshole, "histories as well as an investigation to be conducted at a later date, but for now you fall under the authorization of both Commander Shepard's for now, but remember that you also represent Humanity as well in your actions and deeds, that is all."

They left without a word, Jackson feeling the seething killer intent from where he stood and wisely put a few feet between himself and his twin, "So, charming fella isn't he?"

The front desk clerk looked up after she heard a rather loud racket, watching with a confused expression on her face as two human males walked off leaving a rather large dent in a nearby wall, it seemed that they hadn't liked the meeting with the ambassador as she put in a request order to have the wall fixed.

Jackson was now walking alongside him as they headed for C-Sec to take the elevator back to the ship, "Feel better now that you just finished punching a wall little brother?"

"Nope," Jason sighed as they decided on taking the scenic route, they had a lot of time to kill before they got the news that would come as a surprise, well to everyone else, "wished it was his face."

"Eh, killing someone that important would only end up with you in a jail cell," Jackson snorted as they continued on towards C-Sec, "might as well head back to the ship."

"Naw, got a few things I need to do." Jason said as he struck off in a direction that was never advertised in the first game with his twin right on his heels.

First he stopped at another couple vendors (again not ones visited in any game) to pick up more medical supplies for his kit bag, along with some equipment from what amounted to a galactic Hobby Lobby (Jackson opted for downloading six thousand hours of music along with several workout regime manuals) for future projects, because he had a plan. Several things had irked him about the first game and here he was about to rectify those particular issues in a way, mostly he had picked up some tools and raw materials to begin his first of hopefully many projects that he would conduct later. Next he managed to wrangle a deal from a used equipment salesman to deliver a workbench, larger modification tools and such to the Normandy with what was becoming a very small amount of credits left to his name as Jackson went on to get his hands on a copy of what passed as a Mass Effect universe version of _Shooter's Bible: Mods, Additions, Customization and Upgrades _for cheaper than dirt that was going to be a huge boon.

From there, they killed another hour and half by wandering around some of the livelier areas of the Wards browsing various vendors, stores and whatnot before they got the call to head back to the Normandy double time.

Upon reaching the landing bay where the Normandy was docked, having walked into C-Sec with backgrounds that couldn't hold water and temporary Alliance consultant orders without even being questioned made it realize how easy it was for Cerberus to infiltrate C-Sec in the third installment, too damned easy in fact.

The whole team was there, Udnia and Captain Anderson included as they finished reeling off the only possible leads they had on Saren, which was nil to be honest, to both John and Jane as Jason noticed Tali in the back of the group looking at the Normandy with what could easily be longing as he stepped up next to her and cleared his throat.

"Oh!" The cute jump she did cemented the fact that Jason was going to get a lot of fun out of startling her in the future, "Sorry, did you need something?"

"Checking on your gunshot injury," Jason replied as he pointed at her arm, a new patch standing out in stark comparison to the rest of her suit as he scanned the immediate area with his omni-tool and reached into his bag, "minor swelling and a little infection currently in your system, nothing to worry about for now, here, take one of these now and another in four hours, it'll help with the fever."

Even though he knew for a fact that Dr. Chakwas would be taking care of the entire ground team in her own way as the medical officer onboard the Normandy, he still felt better knowing that he got to help, without acting like some crazy stalker dude to boot.

(In another dimension, Orlando Bloom sneezed on camera, making it the most hilarious celebrity photo of the year according to People magazine.)

"Thank you," Tali chirped as she took the vial and looked back at the Normandy, "Keelah, this ship looks amazing."

"Wait until you see the drive core," Jason smirked as he stowed the rest of his equipment and watched John argue with Anderson while Jane appeared to be talking with Udnia, "the thing is massive."

A shadow fell over the pair as Jason looked up to see Wrex towering over them as he let out a deep rumble, "Human, I hear tales of you fighting a Thresher Maw, I say you didn't and you lie instead."

Damn cover story, Jason chuckled as he looked the older battlemaster over critically, "Never did kill the damn thing, just scared it off after hurting it, though if you heard about it from Jackson, he makes it sound like I collect trophies off the damn things, all I really did was hit the damn thing until it went away."

The look he received in return was enough to make Tali let out yet another squeak as she retreated to a much safer distance, hiding behind Jackson as everyone else turned to watch a massive Krogan in red attempt to stare down a much smaller human in black armor.

John pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a sigh, "I knew this was going to happen, it'll be a miracle if they manage to avoid killing each other."

Garrus was looking slightly nervous as he glanced back and forth between the two, watching as they leaned in closer to one another until they were nearly touching, "Should we intervene before they resort to blows?"

Jackson laughed as he patted the top of Tali's helmet in a comforting manner as she continued to peer around him to watch what was going on, "Naw, he'll be fine, this is just his way of making friends that's all."

Ashley did something of a double take, "Are you sure? Looks like they are getting ready to throw down or something."

"This can only end badly," Alenko sighed as he keyed up his omni-tool to send a message, "I'll inform Dr. Chakwas she'll be having a patient shortly."

Jane Shepard let out a sigh as she stalked forward until she was between the human and Krogan, breaking their staring contest as she said a few words and walked back with a knowing smile on her face.

"What did you say to them?" John asked as he pecked his wife on the cheek, a feat not normally done in full combat armor.

"Told them to either whip it out and measure it or shake hands," Jane smiled at the looks she received in turn from each person, "they were starting to look like a married couple arguing over interior colors."

Soon enough, both the human and Krogan reached up and shook hands, though to a trained eye it appeared that they were trying to crush each other's hand without much success before they released each other's hand, glared at each other once more and walked away as Anderson shook his head and glanced over at John.

"This is your crew Commander and the Normandy is yours, take care of her and good hunting." With that the older man walked towards the elevator after salutes were administered.

**Line Break**

"Ouch." Jason sighed as he flexed the fingers in his left hand, granted he knew getting into a macho hand squeezing match with a Krogan was always a bad idea, but he figured that he had earned a few points from the battlemaster as he met his grip pound for pound.

He had just shown Tali where the engine room, wisely taking a step back as he watched her all but pounce the nearest console and began running all kinds of diagnostics and such on the drive core, much to Adams delight as he found himself in the company of a savant. Rather than show off his extensive memory of downloaded information, he had agreed with Jackson to leave everyone and their respective job alone for now as he set up shop in the cargo bay as well with all of his new tools and equipment.

Directly across from the Requisition's Officer was located, that niche next to Wrex and where the Salarian STG team would hang out normally was where Jason decided to set up his own workbench, similar to the one Ashley was currently working at, but he had an inkling he would be working on more pet projects than servicing all of the weapons and armor used by the ground team. Once he had everything set up, a new set of storage lockers placed right next to it for convenience, he stowed his armor and weapons inside and began fiddling with his older assault rifle and sniper rifle, mostly so he could get some serious hands on with Mass Effect weapons.

**"Now here this," **the distinct voice of John Shepard came over the intercom as Jason stopped what he was doing and looked up, **"this is acting Captain Shepard along with XO Shepard with a message for the entire crew."**

From there it was an interesting speech, part Renegade and part Paragon as both John and Jane went on about how humanity and its allies were given the important mission of hunting Saren down, so on and so forth. (Play the first game over again if you want to hear it, I'm lazy, sue me)

"Not bad for a squishy," Jason smirked as he listened to the heavy footfalls of Wrex as he walked right up and leaned against the bulkhead in his usual spot, "didn't know that they made humans that tough."

"They don't," Jason shot back as he finished striping the weapons in front of him, going mostly off his memory on how to upgrade ME1 weapons, not a lot he could do, but it would be enough for now with what he had on hand, "me and my brother are what you call special."

Wrex grunted as he did his thing of staring off into space, "You talk much pyjack?"

"No."

"Good, I like the quiet."

And thus the relationship with Urdnot Wrex was born, not really, but it was a start as Jackson showed up a few minutes later, stowing his gear in his own locker before saddling up to the new workbench and looking at what he was doing.

"Sup little brother?" Jason rolled his eyes as he continued on the delicate work of examining the Geth software parts he had collected back on Eden Prime.

"The ceiling, you settled in?" The question was rhetorical, Jackson was always a motorhead at heart and lasted all of ten seconds before he went over to ogle the brand new M35 Mako that Garrus was currently pampering, granted Jackson was more engine and performance focused while Garrus had to extensively 'calibrate' the weapons.

"Yup, got some serious tune ups on that Mako in the near future, I can easily tweak another hundred horsepower out of that thing while improving the shielding interface network grid as well." Jackson was too busy rambling on about improving the Mako that he didn't notice the elevator behind him open up to reveal none other than Ashley and Jane talking as they exited the elevator.

Ashley cut her salute and walked over to her work station as Jane went on a clockwise circuit of the cargo bay, starting with Garrus, then on to the engine room where she would no doubt be talking to Tali and Adams before she would be reaching him.

**XXX** (This will signify POV change)

Jane was excited, this ship was top of the line and filled with a senior crew who knew what they were doing, granted the ground team was unique to say in the least as she went on a tour, leaving her husband with Navigator Pressley to plot out the fastest route to Therum.

Joker, Alenko and Chakwas were located on Deck Two, the first was in the cockpit piloting the Normandy while bitching in a good natured manner on how he had yet to put the ship through its paces, the second was tapping away at a flickering console doing something important while the last was hard at work creating medical profiles for each new addition to the crew. She talked with each of them for a few minutes, asking how they were doing, learning about what they did on the Normandy and getting to know them better as individuals instead of referring to them as mindless drones.

It wasn't until she took the elevator down to the cargo bay did she realize what kind of zoo the Normandy appeared to be, there was an C-Sec detective with an affinity for sniper rifles tinkering on the Mako, a soft spoken Quarian (she mentally vowed to break her out of her shell) running laps around her engineering crew that were absolutely ecstatic to have her, a Krogan battlemaster that wanted nothing more than a fight, another female soldier she could respect working away on keeping the weapons and gear serviced and then these two characters.

She was standing next to the elevator after she completed her rounds watching them work at a bench she swore hadn't been there earlier, granted the taller one was mostly pestering the shorter one, who had her interest because she liked to consider herself not too shabby with biotics and tech in her line of work, but he was something else.

Alenko she could relate too, went to brain camp, got the training, killed an instructor and kept the shirt, but this kid on the other hand was something else.

Never had she heard of human being able to perform half the biotic stuff he managed to pull off in a single firefight without collapsing from exhaustion, but he managed it somehow as she decided to talk to the bigger one, Jackson, first.

"Juggernaut," she smiled at the nickname he seemed to answer to as he turned around and smiled, the guy was cheerful and enthusiastic, she give him that much credit, not to mention he was a hell of a shot with an assault rifle as she had found out in Chora's Den, "got a minute?"

"Oh course Boss Lady," he laughed as he picked up a small toolbox and headed towards the Mako, "just getting ready to start the engine overhaul on that pretty thing over yonder."

From there she learned that her nemesis, the monstrosity of a tank she was somewhat qualified to operate, was getting a serious tune up in the name of simply making it go faster, not that she could complain about that as she chatted with him. Granted it was mostly small talk that got more and more detached while he got to work, nothing more than she already knew for now, but she learned where to find a couple decent snack joints and weapon vendors on the Citadel next time they were docked as she turned back to find the other brother, Jason.

He was doing something to a spare Lancer that he found from somewhere as she stepped up and broke the ice, "Got a minute?"

Without even looking up from what he was doing, looked like he was adjusting the power output transceiver on the rifle now that she watched closely he answered with a short, "Uh huh."

Oh, he sounded like a real talkative one for sure, then again she was Commander Jane Shepard and could get any information out of anyone as she launched into an introduction, thinking that he never stood a chance.

**Line Break**

"You know Jason it wouldn't kill you to talk more," Jackson commented from across the cargo bay after Jane left, "I think you broke her to be honest."

Jason chuckled as he remembered the short conversation with Jane Shepard, though he hadn't actually said a word, mostly just single syllables and body language as she was going off at the mouth about biotics, tech and personal information. Granted she had been mostly fishing for information, but knowing that she was incredibly persistent and would be back later for yet another conversation, Jason had taken it upon himself to gradually reveal bits about his "past" over time.

"I did no such thing," Jason laughed as he thought back to the look of utter defeat plastered across her face as she had walked away towards the elevator, "I'll make it up to her later."

Setting the assorted weapons he had been honestly fiddling around with, he pulled out the extensive pile of Geth parts again and had a major brainstorm of an idea that made him smile.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"So after destroying the Geth you decided to rip this out of it as a souvenir?" The question made him chuckle as he stood next to the workbench watching Tali deftly examine all of the parts he had spread out before him.

"Time was of the essence," Jason replied while mentally congratulating himself on inviting Tali to come help him run a diagnostic on the Geth components, "had to disarm a couple bombs."

"Oh," she paused in her examination to switch tools, "the readout you have is from one of their weapons as well?"

Definitely some kind of early model Spitfire in its infancy now that he had time to sit down and think it over, mostly the data consisted of recorded power and temperature levers put out by the weapon that gave a detailed binary record of data he found useful, in the event he managed to get his hands on another one to avoid catastrophic weapon failure, again.

"How were you able to wield it?" Tali had been asking questions nonstop since she got the omni-chat message about having an abundance of Geth hardware components to tear apart and essentially dissect, Jason having wisely scooted over after he located another stool for her to sit on as they got to work taking everything apart and siphoning stored data from the various parts.

"It wasn't difficult," Jason replied before he discarded yet another piece of useless circuitry and reached for another that looked promising, "just sort of picked it up and shot it on the go."

"Really?" Tali's helmet dipped slightly to the left as she stopped working, "the data revealed that the weapon kickback was beyond what an organic is typically rated for, even before the overheat phase began, the sheer weight of the weapon alone looks like it is beyond your physical capabilities, no offense."

Ouch, a blow to his very manhood, must come up with a clever comeback without it turning into an argument about his masculinity as he chuckled and lit up with a biotic aura and concentrated really hard.

Tali let out a surprised (and very adorable) squeak as she found herself hovering several feet off the floor of the cargo as she attempted to reach for something secured, flailing her arms comically before Jason willed her back into her seat with a smile on his face.

"Biotics," he supplied with a smug grin on his face as she huffed and turned back to the components, wrapping both of her feet around the leg of the workbench as he got back to work right alongside her.

"I did the math," her tone was level, like she was trying to avoid sounding like a child, but holding her mature tone as she tilted her head towards him again, "the amount of force would have broken the bones of any organic aside from a Krogan after the first shot, even with biotics I have to ask, how?"

Somewhere a mental scoreboard appeared keeping a running tally as Jason schooled his facial expression to reveal nothing as he tinkered with the part in front of him in silence for several seconds before glancing over at Tali to see if she was still looking at him.

Green clashed with silver for several seconds before he let out a sigh and set the parts in front of him down, "Because I'm not a normal human."

"What?" Tali's voice modulator light blinked as she paid rapt attention.

Jason sighed again as he let a suffering look creep across his face, "It's kind of personal and I'm not really comfortable talking about it yet, if you want to know you can ask either Shepard about it."

A three finger hand appeared on his upper arm, so surprising he had to curb the automatic reflex of shrugging it off before launching a Warp at the offender as he found himself looking into Tali's faceplate.

"Its fine, I didn't mean to pry," she took a breath as she moved her hand and picked up another part, "so what are you going to do with all the data you logged from these parts anyway?"

"Seeing how we didn't get much I was going to put it aside for now until we got some more complete pieces to work with, get an understanding of Geth software and such," Jason shrugged as he smiled at Tali softly, "I get the feeling following those two around is going to lead us to some very interesting places packed with Geth."

Tali laughed, a nice sound as Jason mentally filed away the fact he needed to learn some new jokes without sounding like an idiot, "You make it sound like Saren has an army of these things at his beck and call."

His look of amusement quickly morphed into his typical poker face as her chuckles tapered off before her fingers started to wring, a rather amusing sight to watch as she squirmed in her seat.

"He doesn't right?" Jason restrained himself from reaching over and comforting her with a hug, because she sounded terrified of the aspect of facing an army of Geth as he shook his head.

"Call me paranoid, but I think we'll be alright," he smiled as her fingers stopped twitching, "how is your injury doing? No fever or chafing I hope."

"Oh, it is doing remarkably well now that you ask," she flexed her limb in question several times, "feels good as new."

"Uh huh," Jason commented as he ran another scan over her injury sight before giving her a look that made her squirm again, "you shouldn't be running around so much while your immune system is still fighting an infection, in fact you should go get something to eat and some rest."

"But I have work to do," she cast a glance at the workbench in front of her, "the Admirals back in my fleet would pay dearly in any amount of resources to have these Geth parts, I need to do this."

That selfless trait was rearing its head now as Jason laughed, "Well as long as I'm working with you it can't hurt, hand me that piece next to your left hand and we'll get started."

"You know what this is?"

"Nope, never seen anything like it before in my life, but its' fun to learn how things work."

**XXX**

"I'm telling you Commander that those two are worth more than this ship twice over," Dr. Chakwas continued to explain as she laid out detailed reports in front of John and Jane, who were currently in the medical bay on the second deck, "once Alliance R&D and Medical Division received the reports from both Jackson and Jason, I've had every single lead surgeon, biochemist, neurologist, doctor and medical researcher sending highly encrypted messages asking all kinds of questions, don't be surprised when you receive similar messages and probably a couple questions from a few Admirals."

"Word has already gotten out about these two?" John asked as he briefly skimmed over the reports, most of it going over his head, but he was clearly getting the gist of it.

Dr. Chakwas sighed, "For now it is still within a highly classified priority, but more people are learning about these two, in fact it won't be long before those two are going to be hounded for examinations, case studies, detailed scanning and such."

"With our Spectre authority we can easily overrule that," Jane scoffed as she set a data pad down and crossed her arms, "so what is it you needed to tell us."

"After the initial scans and customary examinations of Jackson and Jason," Dr. Chakwas pointed towards the nearest glowing interface to prove her point, "I noticed that each one had similar characteristics, namely the surgical scarring and biological improvements, but something else that may aid you in tracking down their origins."

"What is that? A return to sender address note? Sick and Demented Incorporated logo?" John asked as his wife sighed and pointed at each characteristic Dr. Chakwas spoke of.

"The tattoos, the long string of numbers appear to be some sort of identification number," she glanced at each one before going on, "this tells us that whoever is behind this goes through a lot of subjects if the number is that long."

"My God," John was stunned as he finally grasped the concept, "there could be hundreds of copies running around already?"

Dr. Chakwas sent a look his way that told him it wasn't the case, "Not likely, the amount of resources and time required just for these two is astronomical, it would be cost prohibitive to even think of creating an army of that magnitude."

"So we happened to luck out when we found them on Eden Prime?" John let out a whistle, "Now that seems like fate having a wild card in store for us later on."

"Anything else doc?" Jane asked as she forwarded some of the more interesting aspects of the medical files to her omni-tool while the doctor in question frowned.

"As a matter of fact yes," she brought up yet another chart, this one of a Quarian, "it has come to my attention that Tali'Zorah was injured earlier and got medical attention from a clinic that I happen to know quite well, but Dr. Michele never prescribed her the medication to further treat her injuries until I asked her when she had taken the antibiotics and medicine supplements."

"She is a Quarian," John shrugged as stated the obvious, "it comes with the territory that she would have medical supplies on hand to treat her injuries."

"Yes, but when I was putting her medical file together earlier she informed me that she didn't have any before Jason gave them to her," Dr. Chakwas pointed out as she brought up another screen, this one appearing to be some kind of list, "it wasn't until I sent a message to the clinic and got a reply from Dr. Michele that Jason had picked up some supplies."

"We were there for that," Jane said as she assumed her thinking pose, placing her chin in the palm of her right hand while crossing her left across her stomach, "he seemed really tense about it."

"Like a teenager buying condoms for the first time," John snorted at the looks he received from the two women present, "oh come on, he was clearly uncomfortable about walking into that clinic alone with a doctor present."

"You could tell?" Jane sounded surprised as John laughed.

"It's a guy thing honey, you wouldn't understand." John smiled at the pout he received in return.

"Be that as it may," Dr. Chakwas brought the topic in hand back on track, "I would have never thought about treating her injuries like that or giving her that specific medication, in fact I've made a note of it for future use, what I'm trying to say is that Jason appears to have a firm grasp of the medical field, levo and dextro."

"Still not seeing the big picture here," John said as he shrugged towards his wife, "he knew a few tricks and likes to carry his own medical supplies, I can respect that."

"No dummy," Jane sighed deeply as she caressed her temples, "what she is trying to say is that Jason might have received medical training in the past, which can be a huge boon to our future operations of we have him on the ground team."

"Big deal, slap on some medi-gel and keep going," John missed the looks of exasperation between both women, "I think he'll be handy in fight with his biotics."

"About that as well," Dr. Chakwas was on a roll with the screens and flowing medical graphs as John attempted to follow on, but got nothing, Jane on the other hand was following along with rapt attention, "a passive biotic scan revealed that he was putting out more dark energy in his relaxed state than most human biotics could ever hope to achieve at peak efficiency."

Jane let out surprised sound, "How is the comparison to his biotic test you had him perform?"

Dr. Chakwas brought up another alongside it, this one lit up like a Christmas Tree in comparison to the first, "I would be willing to bet he could generate enough biotic energy without any kind of amp to easily overpower and kill anyone, maybe even bust his way through a few bulkheads," the looks she got made her pause for a few seconds, "I would actually have to believe Jackson on how powerful Jason really is."

More information passed between John and Jane in that instant than half an hour of conversation could ever hope to pass, the benefits of being married for years with lots of nonverbal training to go with it as it pretty much boiled down to a single thought both of them were currently having.

_Permanent team member._

**XXX**

_ACHOO!_

"Ah, that was weird," Jason frowned before glancing over at Tali, who was curled up in her seat softly snoring as he finished compiling the Geth parts with all the information and schematics they managed to glean in the last few hours, before Tali had fallen asleep from the exhaustion she was no doubt feeling.

Come to think if it, he was tired as he put everything away for now and looked around the cargo bay, noticing that Wrex as passed out (while slouched against the wall, how he managed that Jason would never know) and neither Jackson or Garrus were near the Mako either before he looked back at Tali's sleeping form.

_Well, just can't leave her there, _Jason sighed as he reached over and tapped her shoulder gently to see if she woke up.

No response, so he tried shaking her shoulder.

Again no response as scratched the side of his head before shrugging and gently picked her up bridal style, tucking her head against his chest before he slowly moved towards the elevator.

Tali didn't so much as stir in her sleep as he summoned the slowest elevator in existence before climbing in and hit the second deck command, standing still until the elevator arrived as he stepped out and walked towards the sleeping pods on the other side of the mess and discovered where his twin and Garrus had wandered off to.

Jackson was in the middle of an animated discussion with Garrus as Ashley was busy eating something a few seats away, that and Alenko was helping himself to a cup of coffee, the grimace on his face told him exactly what he thought of it as Jason walked by with Tali asleep in his arms.

"Not a word," Jason directed at Jackson as he lit up with a biotic aura as a warning before he reached an empty sleeping pod and gently deposited her inside carefully before heading back to the table.

With a shit eating grin plastered across his face, Jackson stood up and clapped softly before laughing, "Well that was fast, tire her out already?"

Alenko performed an epic spit-take as Ashley looked up in alarm while Garrus had some kind of confused/surprised look in his face.

"Knock it off dufus, she passed out from the meds and exhaustion, no funny business," Jason shot back before he grabbed a tray and loaded it up, "gonna crash down in the cargo bay, no way in Hell am I sleeping in one of those coffins."

Jackson scoffed as he took his seat again, "How do you think I feel? I can't even fit inside one of those things to start with, so I'll be sleeping in the Mako for now."

A committal grunt was all he got for an answer as Jackson waited all of five seconds before diving into his next question, "Did you learn anything from the hacking?"

Jason grunted while shaking his hand side to side before he took a drink and swallowed, "Some random strings of data, nothing solid yet."

Garrus cleared his throat with a cough, "Uh why do you call the sleeper pods coffins if you don't mind me asking?"

"Coffins are boxes humans store dead bodies inside for proper burial," Ashley responded before glancing back and forth between Jason and Jackson before looking back at Garrus, "it's a human thing I guess."

"Ah," Garrus sighed, "have you ever been in a coffin to know it was similar before you made that comparison, because you've never been on a ship before."

Jason paused in the middle of chewing before swallowing and reaching for his glass of water, "Been trapped inside something that might have well been my coffin."

"Claustrophobic?" Alenko asked as Jackson laughed, earning an odd look from everyone present.

"Just don't like being trapped without an exit route, have no problem with tight spaces at all," Jason smirked, "wouldn't be alive if I did have a problem with it."

"Remember that time on Omega we had to crawl through half a mile of sewage pipes?" Jackson laughed again as he launched into a 'story' for everyone to hear, going on about how they were on the run from a couple bounty hunters and desperate for a way out as Jason continued to eat his meal.

"Then the poor bastard got blown off the catwalk for the second time and landed back in the shit he had just crawled out of," Jackson chortled, "he was so pissed as he got up and blasted half a dozen bounty hunters point blank range with some newfangled biotic attack he learned from watching a couple vids."

"How did you guys get away?" Garrus asked as Jason shook his head.

"Nothing so glamorous as riding off into the sunset, we slipped into a crowded area and hopped onto a public transit mag rail train covered in blood, guts, shit and all kinds of garbage like any other passenger and not one person said a word," Jackson laughed again, "come to think of it, none of them even batted an eye."

"Probably see if every single day," Ashley chuckled as she looked up and jumped to attention, "didn't see you Commander, Lieutenant."

Both John and Jane were stepping out of the medical bay towards them as Jason went back to eating his meal, though he really hoped that the food could be improved before the second installment, that or else it was going to be a long trip.

"At ease," Jane responded as she grabbed a chair and sat down while John wandered over to punch the auto-chef for a cup of decent coffee, "how is the rest of the team?"

_Can't call it a team without Liara yet, _Jason thought to himself as he cleared his throat.

"Wrex is down in the cargo bay asleep, Tali is over in that sleeper pod because the meds and fatigue got to her and the rest of us are watching my idiot brother make a fool of himself," Jason smiled as he glanced over at Jackson, "why don't you tell them that one time you walked in a gay bar eh?"

This had actually happened before in their real life, no cover story at all as Jackson got all defensive and crossed his arms, uncaring of the smirks sent his way, "Yeah, well how about you enlighten everyone else about your little accident back on Omega with that Asari dancer and that Krogan bouncer, I get a kick out of that one every time."

"Touché." Everyone seemed to be watching the verbal sparring match like a ping pong game going back and forth as John sat down next to his wife with a set of steaming mugs before Jason refocused his attention on them in particular.

"So, where are we heading if you don't mind me asking," Jason asked out loud, the question directed more towards the Commanders than anyone else, "I like to be prepared in knowing where I'm going next."

Both Shepard's shared a look before Jane spoke up, "We were going to tell everyone over a briefing tomorrow when everyone was present to hear it."

Jackson laughed as he raised his left hand and began counting off two fingers, "Wrex wouldn't want to sit around and talk about where we're going when he could just jump and shoot something and second, do you want to wake him up?"

Several heads performed the universal gesture of no, vigorously, before he continued on, "That and Jason had to carry our little engineer to a bunk because the poor thing was all tuckered out, so I doubt she'll be on the next mission until the good doctor clears her for groundside missions."

Jason didn't notice the gleam in Jane Shepard's eyes as she snatched up her coffee to take a long drink as she began to ponder what the latest addition of the crew meant to the biggest enigma, oh what fun she would have.

"That is correct," Dr. Chakwas spoke up as she walked over to the auto-chef and waited for her coffee to appear, Jason making note to watch every single move she made and to slide over one empty seat to sit just a little bit farther away when she sat down, "while her recovery is remarkable, it'll be another few days before I even think about letting her conduct groundside operations."

Jackson clapped softly, "Thank you, hold your applause until I reveal the almighty and powerful plan I've made in deducing where our first destination shall be."

Turning to both Shepard's, Jason watched as his twin pulled out a pair of glasses from somewhere and donned them on his face as he stood up and turned to face the table, making a mental note that Ashley turned an _interesting_ color as he managed to pull off the scholarly holier than thou appearance as he began pacing back and forth, scratching at his chin while giving both Commanders a piercing glare.

"Therum," Jackson smiled as he removed his glasses and began pacing around, "our first destination is Therum, where rumor has it that one Liara T'Soni, daughter of the Asari Matriarch who is confirmed ally of Saren is currently located due to the abundance of Prothean ruins, where the most probable chance of gathering vital intelligence can be found."

Everyone was paying rapt attention now, "Suffice to say that any chance of obtaining Miss T'Soni would have to be done immediately, her mother might want her only daughter to be hidden from anyone trying to exploit her or to be at her side now that the galaxy at large knows her identity is tied with Saren, we'll have to move quickly."

Garrus was the first to speak, "When this mission is over, can I borrow him? C-Sec would benefit greatly from his help."

John grunted as he took another sip, "You owe me ten credits honey."

Jackson laughed as he took a bow, "Thank you, I'm here all week."

"Oh crap," Ashley sighed as she shook her head sadly, "we have a comedian on the ground team."

A chorus of groans went up at this as Alenko stood up, "Joker is going to be heartbroken now that we've replaced him with a much more durable double of himself."

**XXX**

ACHOO!

"Huh, that was weird," Joker said as he wiped his nose.

Navigator Pressley appeared over his shoulder with a box of Kleenex, "Are you getting sick Jeff?"

"No, the strangest thing is that I think someone is talking about me," Joker shrugged as he corrected the miniscule amount of drift the Normandy had suffered from his lack of attention, "the only time this happens is when someone is talking about court martialing me or that some random porn star wants to date me."

Pressley rolled his eyes, "Somehow I seriously doubt that."

"What? A guy can dream can't he?"

**XXX**

"Okay so I was right? We're going to Therum first?" Jackson asked before he received the acknowledging nods as he turned back to face Jason with a hand outstretched and a smile plastering his face, "Ha, now pay up!"

Glowering at his twin, Jason went through the motions of sending a small amount of credits via omni-tool towards his twin before going back to his food as the others grouped around the table laughed at his expense.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Therum was a volcanic world with ungodly humid temperatures, pools of molten lava scattered across the surface the planet and from orbit it looked like a glowing hellhole.

How little that description actually did it some justice as he looked out the rear cargo bay door of the Normandy that was currently in orbit over the planet before he climbed into the side hatch of the Mako and grabbed a seat.

Sitting to his left was Wrex and while Garrus and Jackson sat across from him, apparently John was sitting behind the wheel as Jane operated the turret, bringing a total of six people on the ground team. Apparently it was split up, Garrus and Jackson with Jane as Jason was stuck working with Wrex under John's command as he fastened his safety harness and donned his helmet. The idea of dropping into the atmosphere of the planet from orbit inside of a tank sounded insane, but the propulsion jets and the mass effect core working together would easily allow the vehicle to land safely, not that Jason was actually worried or anything about the landing, he had a reason to believe that the Mako would handle exactly like it did in the game.

From what he also remembered, Therum would be where a whole bunch of Geth could be found as well, a good thing he had a few spare ammo mods to combat synthetics along with his usual mix of fire, ice and armor piercing, that and the half dozen grenades he had along as well would be saved for the uber Geth and that ambush later on.

Prior to the current ground team getting into the Mako, where they were patiently waiting for Joker to kindly move the Normandy into position to make the drop, everyone had demonstrated a series of skills they were proficient with.

Garrus showed off his Overload, Concussive Shot, Drop Shot (fancy way of saying he upped the power on his rifle and made a well-timed shot) and Covering Fire skills without any hesitation whatsoever. Wrex demonstrated that he wasn't a thousand year old Krogan battlemaster for nothing, Warp, Barrier, Carnage and Throw were his specialties, making him a close range heavy hitter for John. Jackson thought that his skills with Covering Fire, Assault Charge, Carnage and Overload would also be a really big help, that and the fact his Revenant Mk 0 had four times the damage output compared to most assault rifles.

Jason had his batch of biotic tricks, Overload, AI Hacking, Proximity Mine, Assault Charge and First Aid that would benefit the squad as well, making him to the go-to support role that would provide aid in the event things got dicey.

"Approaching the drop point, dropping on my mark," Joker's voice cut through his thoughts as everyone finished strapping in and securing any loose items, "dropping in five…four….three…two…one…mark."

"YYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHAAAAAAAWWWWWW!" Jason was sure that his ears were bleeding as Jackson on the other hand was too busy having the time of his life, "COME ON PUT YOUR HANDS UP! WWWWIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The ride lasted a lot longer than he thought it would, but by the time the ground loomed up and brought the nail biting ride to an end, finally, Jackson stopped cheering and looked really put out.

"So who's up for round two?" The glares he received from the non-human occupants of the Mako shut him up real quick as Jason's worst fears came to light as the Mako began moving.

In a very uncomfortable manner.

"Uh Shepard, isn't the idea to avoid hitting all the potholes, ditches, rocks and pools of molten lava?" Jackson asked after about fifteen minutes of getting slammed around in the back of the Mako like it was a pinball machine as Garrus started looking a little green and Wrex was busy looking around for something to barf into for now.

"I am," the reply was tinged with sarcasm, "just got a call from Joker about some strange readings."

"Geth dropship inbound," John said as a dull humming could be heard, Jason could just imagine the distinctive shape flying overhead before he heard the dreaded words of, "they just dropped some kind of ground walker in our path."

"Hang on, I got this." Jason glanced around the compartment noticing that Jackson was busy preparing his eulogy, Garrus was praying to some deity and Wrex looked very close to vomiting as he braced himself.

"Wait Jane, don't run them," whatever else John was about to say over the sounds of cannon fire, missiles firing and the roar of the engine, not to mention the mass accelerator rounds pinging off the sides of the armored vehicle before the Mako jolted violently and crashed into something, "over."

"Spirits, are we going to die?" Garrus asked as he frantically looked around after a series of crashes signifying that Jane had just run something over again as the Mako lurched and bounced on its chassis.

The exhilarating ride continued for several minutes, the reports of the main cannon and missiles firing from the turret and rounds bouncing off the armor told the story of how well things were going out there after Jane discovered that using short jumps from the stabilizers could be used to jump over incoming fire and other obstacles as the Mako began performing maneuvers it was never clearly rated to do.

"Got some kind of encampment ahead, couple of heavy turrets," John continued to narrate as the turret kept firing, "make us a hard to hit target while I mop them up, keep us at this distance so you have room to maneuver."

**XXX**

"Well that clearly didn't work," Jane commented as she crawled through the side hatch on the Mako before turning back to look at it, "I could've made it if I gave it one more try."

"NO!" The force of the yell from four different people surprised her as she watched everyone else pile out of the Mako faster than she'd ever seen anyone move, one of them moving with the assistance of a biotic Charge and another diving clear of the vehicle like it was about to explode. The Mako was currently trapped between two very large boulders on its side where she couldn't get the vehicle to right itself or move for that matter, in fact it had held together much longer than she had originally thought as she turned to face her husband, who was too busy scouting the narrow canyon ahead of them.

She still couldn't understand that when they had stopped at the first Geth encampment after destroying the heavy turrets, later discovering the alternate route leading behind that locked gate into a swarm of Geth troopers and larger ground units where everyone had piled out of the Mako in a hurry to search the nearby buildings and unlock both gates. Along the way they had gathered up a pretty hefty collection of salvage, credits and loot from locked storage containers, lockers, crates and such that was stashed in the Mako before they had headed out again.

"Alright team, the signal is coming from that direction clearly, expect heavy Geth resistance," John said as everyone got into a huddle, "I'll take the direct approach while Jane covers us from the ridgeline with sniper and biotic support, any questions?"

Jackson was the first to raise his hand as Jane continued to tinker with her pistol mod, "Have either one of you actually been certified to drive a Mako?"

The pregnant silence was enough to make Jane look up from what she was doing and found herself looking the rest of the ground team in the face as she found herself put on the spot.

"Uh, well you see," a sideways glance at her husband revealed that she wasn't getting any help whatsoever in that category as everyone leaned in closer to catch everything she was trying to say even though they all wore headsets with built in microphones that could register her breathing.

**_BANG!_**

"We have to move," John shouted as incoming fire began pouring in their direction, "we got Geth throwing everything at us!"

Jackson abruptly turned and sprinted back to the Mako at full speed while Jason simply launched some kind of biotic shield wall that stopped all incoming fire in its tracks, now Jane really had to learn some background on this kid as Wrex turned back to roar at Jackson, "Where are you going whelp?"

"I've got an idea!"

**XXX**

"I totally called it," Jackson gloated over the team chat net after yet another Geth trooper exploded in a spectacular display of sparks, servos and cabling resulting from a direct hit, "told you that I could get the Mako out and through without blowing it up."

Sure enough Jackson had utilized the cheat method of sneaking the Mako through the gap in the rocks and was currently driving it at a slow rate of speed through the narrow corridor created by natural elements as Garrus happily operated the turret while Jason took up refuge behind the tank with the rest of the team providing whatever cover fire they could, even though Jackson had everything under control.

"Alright we get it," Jane pouted over the net while she Pulled a trooper towards her so she could blast it with her magnum, "you'll be driving from now on."

"You hear that Garrus? She put us professionals in charge of driving the Mako!"

"Oh I can't wait to know how that will end up," Jason commented as they finally reached the top of the hill after taking out six sniper towers, a dozen rocket launcher wielding robots and two armatures as Jason tensed and kept moving.

"There's the dig site entrance," John pointed as the ramp and obvious door leading underground appeared, "looks like the coast is…"

**WHAMUP! **

Cue the Geth Colossus, all around irritating Geth platform armed with a siege cannon and a pair of heavy pulse turrets that dropped from orbit and it brought some friends along for the ride.

Like three other Colossus, a dozen Primes, six Hoppers and roughly thirty rocket troopers with the usual fifty troopers.

"You have got to be shitting me!" Jason yelled as he rolled behind the nearest piece of cover that hadn't become the single target of every single Geth platform in the area, "Can anything ever go according to plan?"

"No plan ever survives against first contact with the enemy," John replied as he dove behind a crate for cover, "we need to fall back!"

"Trying!" The reply from Jackson was short and to the point as the Mako began hopping all over the place as rocket, missile, siege pulse rounds and large hails of mass accelerator fire was aimed at it, "Would someone do something?"

Jason sighed as he stepped out from behind the boulder he was taking cover behind and executed a biotic Charge towards the nearest Colossus as everyone either yelled at him to come back or opened fire as the advancing wave of Geth made cover imperative, least they ended up sporting six dozen new holes as a fatal fashion statement.

Skidding to halt beneath the first Colossus, Jason pulled out one of his homemade explosive shape charges from his belt, slapping the magnetic clamp onto the bottom of the armored underbelly near a leg joint, keying the buttons for a ten second detonation and then performed a second Charge across the battlefield, towards the metal wall with the tower looking thing for cover. Along the way he tagged four Geth Prime's with a grenade stuffed into either a neck or shoulder joint and blasted two Hoppers before the first bomb exploded in a spectacular fashion.

"The fuck was that?" Jane shouted over the net, "I don't remember having heavy munitions along on this op."

Jackson commented as he tore back down the ramp with a smoldering Mako, "That would be Jason, he can make bombs out of anything, trust me."

By then the Geth had set up shop around the entrance to the tunnel, only a dozen regular troopers and the surviving Prime's heading down the tunnel while the remaining three Colossus formed up around the entrance and began firing, during this time the remaining Geth platforms were moving towards the locations of the ground team, laying down thick covering fire as the Mako reappeared again.

"Goodbye!"

Garrus got three rounds off from the main gun before Jackson threw the Mako in reverse, just in time as a trio of siege pulses impacted right where the Mako had been sitting seconds earlier, however it provided enough of a distraction for Wrex, Jane and John to slip back out of sight from the Colossus.

"We need air support!" Jackson yelled as he hit the jets to avoid a rocket coming their way, "Think Joker can drop by long enough to shot something Bossman? That or else we can kiss our collective butts goodbye!"

"Where is Jason?" John shouted as Garrus swung out of the Mako with his rifle in hand with Jackson right behind him brandishing his assault rifle.

"If I know my own brother as well as I do, no doubt he is either plotting to blow something up or ripping it apart at the molecular level," Jackson commented as he gave the Mako a swift kick, "damn tank is dead where it sits, punched right through the drive block."

"Shit, that was our only ticket at having a fair fight." John ducked in time to avoid a sniper round meant for his head as they found themselves under intense fire.

An explosion not too far away diverted their attention back towards the tunnel, more smoke could be seen as Jane caught a Hopper in a biotic Warp field that had been jamming their sensors.

"Whelp seems to be still alive," Wrex said as he blasted a trooper in the optical unit, "we should save him before he does anything stupid."

"Like charge singlehandedly into the largest concentration of Geth we've encountered?" Jane shot back as Jackson led the way back towards the tunnel entrance where a third explosion could be heard.

"Sounds like he is really laying on the hurt," Jackson sighed as he tossed a grenade before letting loose with a long burst from his assault rifle, "we better go save his ass."

**XXX**

The one good bit of news about having so many Geth dropped into one area, was that for every explosion that went off, it not only took out a Colossus, but at least a dozen smaller platforms crowded around the Colossus that decided to spontaneously combust with a little help from a carefully pre-packaged token of appreciation that contained just the right amount of explosives that could easily destroy a Mako.

Or a Geth Colossus.

Jason however, only had three such devices and he had just thrown the last one, leaving the remaining Colossus and just under twenty remaining combat platforms crowded around the tunnel entrance as he found half his cover getting slagged by that siege cannon. Given the fact that the Geth seemed to have wised up and declared him to be the larger threat rather than the concentrated fire coming from where the others had pulled a quick retreat, that told him he was just special or something. One particular annoying thing was that his motion tracker and com unit was on the fritz because there was still a Hopper bouncing around somewhere, mobile jamming platform that was incredibly irritating and if he so much as stuck his nose out from behind cover, he'd get shredded.

What to do, what to do, it was then Jason dropped his hand to his belt to feel how many grenades he had left on his person.

Five. That would have to be enough.

A glance towards the nearest smoldering Colossus revealed yet another surprise as Jason felt another trademark smile that would've made Hannibal Lector shudder in fear.

Things were finally starting to look up.

At least he hoped his plan would work, because no doubt either John or Jane would call in Joker for a strafing run and he was already too close to ground zero, so he figured it was either do or die.

Eh, he'd done crazier things before.

**XXX**

"Wait," Jackson said as he finished taking down yet another rocket trooper, "I sense a disturbance in the force."

"What?!" Several people gave him a WTF look as he crouched down behind something solid before motioning for everyone else to join him.

"Are you hit? Head injury?" Jane asked as she activated her omni-tool and ran a scan over him, "last thing we need is for you to lose your shit out here Juggernaut, so keep it together!"

"Troopers incoming!" Garrus called out as a series of rifle shots and pistol fire placated them as another siege pulse sailed overhead, "Do we have a plan?"

"Working on it!" John shouted before activating his com unit in hopes of raising the Normandy to get either support or a fast evac before they all ended up in body bags, "We need to hold out a little longer!"

"What about Jason!" Jane shouted back as she ducked to avoid a sniper round meant for her head this time, "We can't leave him there to die!"

"Incoming!" Wrex pitched in as well as everyone scattered before the rock they were hiding behind became a pile of molten slag before something unexpected happened.

One second it was like Star Wars Episode IV and the next nothing as they found themselves no longer under fire, like the faucet in the shower had just been turned off, but they could hear plenty of gunfire, explosions and that electronic warbling from the Geth.

"What the," John asked out loud before sticking his head out from behind cover to get a decent look before ducking back behind cover again.

"I WILL TEAR YOU WORTHLESS SCRAP HEAPS APART WITH MY BARE HANDS IF I HAVE TOO!"

"Is that," Garrus tilted his head while his mandibles twitched in a questioning manner, "Jason?"

"Who else would it be, Santa Claus?" Jackson scoffed as the obvious sound of heavy Geth machine gun could be heard, "Oh crap, he found another one."

"COME BACK HERE YOU BUCKET OF BOLTS!"

"Should we do something?" Jane asked as everyone stepped out from behind cover to watch the scene unfold as Jackson simply raised his omni-tool and took a picture.

"That is about all we can do Boss Lady, except watch of course."

"I WILL DRAG YOUR CORPSES TO THE DARKEST DEPTHS OF HELL!"

"Hmm," Wrex grunted before turning to face Jackson, "the whelp might survive this fight after all, he fights like a Krogan in the midst of a blood rage."

Garrus ducked in time to avoid a severed Geth arm still clutching onto an assault rifle hitting him in the head after a rather nasty explosion obliterated a small group of them, "Where did he learn to fight like that?"

"Eh, taught him everything I knew," Jackson commented offhandedly as he reached into his rear belt pouch and tossed a candy in his mouth, "though this is actually pretty mellow for him."

"What are you eating?" Jane asked as she glanced back and forth between the spectacle going on in front of them and Jackson, who was busy munching away on something.

"Glorified combat ration snack bar thingy," Jackson shrugged before he offered it to everyone, "want a bite?"

"I'll pass."

"No."

"Rain check?"

"I'd rather not die from food poisoning."

"YOU SHALL FALL BEFORE ME AS I KILL ALL OF YOU!"

"Wow, he really gets into it," John remarked as he watched the Colossus explode in a display of fireworks and smoke, "remind me to give him the bonus when we get back to the ship."

"Wait, what bonus?" Jackson asked as yet another mutilated Geth Hopper went crashing into a stone wall as Wrex and Garrus listened on intently as John shrugged.

"Any member of the ground team who has a higher kill count than me or Jane gets a bonus for a job well done," John said as everyone watched Jason calmly walk over to where they were standing with a smoking Geth weapon in his hands, though his armor might have been the actual source of the smoke come to think of it.

**XXX**

"You guys could have helped you know." Jason snapped as he finished applied liberal amounts of medi-gel onto what few injuries he had while everyone gathered around the tunnel entrance.

"It looked like you had everything under control," Jackson laughed as he patted another smoldering patch of armor in an attempt to smother the flames flickering into view before he glanced around, "though on second thought, you get the prize for having a higher kill count."

"Sweet," Jason snorted as he picked up another Spitfire and began fiddling with it, "taking one of these back to Tali for some serious dismantling and diagnostics work, so pick one of them up will you?"

"Ah, that is so sweet," Jason rolled his eyes as he felt an uber douchebag comment coming on, "you pick the nicest things for your girlfriend you know that?"

Catching the smirk from Jane and the bewildered look from Garrus as he finished his hasty job of allowing an organic user, namely himself and Jackson, to pick up and fire said weapons for a short while, as well as implementing an audio warning feature when it was time to drop said weapon, least it exploded. From there he wandered around for a few minutes picking up random bits and bobs from assorted platforms that were scattered around in abundance, taking a few dozen scans and things of that nature before John and Wrex came back from the Mako looking upset.

"Our coms are still not able to reach the Normandy," John gestured towards the tunnel entrance, "seems that those jammers can still work while underground, so we'll proceed as planned and locate Dr. T'Soni, sooner rather than later."

"One second," Jackson said before he took the offered Spitfire from Jason and walked towards the tunnel, "okay, now I'm ready."

No one else said a word, Wrex wordlessly taking another unmodified Spitfire and some larger pieces of Geth wreckage for later as Jason found himself bringing up the rear as Jackson led the way with his new toy, very eager to use it too. The tunnel was a downward slope of thirty degrees that went for a good hundred meters, Jason could only wonder if they could manage the sprint back up with the whole damn thing collapsing on them later on after the mining laser caused the ruins to become unstable, he wasn't going to be the one who programed it either.

They didn't run into anything until they reached the bottom of the tunnel where a Geth Prime reared its flashlight head and stepped into full view of six heavily armed individuals less than fifteen meters away.

"I hate elevators," Jackson said as he managed to squeeze out of the first one as he followed Garrus towards the second infamous falling one, "you would think that there would be more of a welcoming committee waiting for us."

"Maybe the jammers act both ways," Jane answered as Jason noticed his motion tracker was picking up traces of movement around them, but he waited for now, "they must think that their friends upstairs are just mopping up the rest of us."

"Or it could be a trap," John supplied offhandedly as half a dozen Drones soared up out of the darkness on either side of the catwalk, "didn't see that ambush coming."

"Less talk, more killing." Wrex grunted as he blasted the first Drone into a million pieces as everyone else opened fire with a combination of weapons fire, tech attacks and biotics that whittled the overwhelming number of pesky flyers down to zero in a very short time.

"Oh boy, my favorite pass time." Jackson laughed as he crammed himself into the elevator next to Wrex as Garrus poked his head up.

"Riding in elevators?"

"No, shoving my seven foot frame into small places somehow getting myself to fit." Jackson laughed up until the elevator control panel sparked for a few seconds before the elevator plummeted downwards at a high rate of speed.

**XXX**

Unit JG887HGR4 had to pause in its attempts to locate Unit A11KV6903 on the server network because it had been eighty-four seconds since the last digital handshake had been confirmed when its audio sensors picked up a series of sounds on the high frequency spectrum as well as confirming the possibility of organic life within the vicinity.

One point four seconds after the collective consensus from six hundred thirty-two separate Geth within that platform was made, the optical unit raised sixty-seven point five degrees upward to investigate the source of the sound the internal processors were still attempting to decipher the sound into binary code as the magnification and visual input feed was widened in order to allow Unit JG887HGR4 to fully gather the proper amount of data to confirm the presence of organic life inside the established zone of operations.

Zero point six seconds after the optical unit was able to process the findings, Unit JG887HGR4 had a unanimous confirmation from every single program operating within the platform.

The platform should not have oriented itself directly underneath a faulty lift platform.

One point three seconds after the consensus was reached, Unit JG887HGR4 went offline, terminating any outside link with other Geth programs in the immediate vicinity, permanently.

Unit LLO520N7 acknowledged the binary query from the surviving programs from Unit JG887HGR4 and was presented with an audio log that it's one thousand two hundred fifty-eight programs couldn't reach a consensus on at this time as to why it was the only thing reported.

"SONOFABITCH! I FUCKING HATE ELEVATORS!"

**XXX**

"I swear, one more thing goes wrong and I will lose it for sure," Jackson groaned as he warily crawled out of the demolished wreckage of the elevator after Garrus, holding his head, "who landed on me anyway, that hurt like Hell."

"Are you calling me fat?" The loaded question came from none other than Jane Shepard as she helped Jason out of the elevator as they joined up with John.

"Of course not Boss Lady," Jackson recovered quickly, "I was just pointing out that plummeting down a certain distance at a particularly unsafe speed with an abrupt stop at the end has the effect of greatly increasing the weight of an object, that is all."

"Uh huh," Jane scowled at him before turning to her husband, "any idea where we are?"

"Underground, near a functioning Prothean ruin, located somewhere on Therum," John deadpanned before turning around to point at something just out of sight, "and less than ten meters from our objective."

"Really?" Jackson asked as he took point and hopped down the broken section of catwalk as everyone filed after him.

Sure enough, suspended in midair was none other than one Asari Prothean archeologist inside of a working Prothean containment chamber, the one and only Dr. Liara T'Soni.

"Um hello?" Jason felt a smile coming on as he followed closely behind Wrex, "Is anyone out there? Oh of course not, you are imaging things again."

"Dr. Liara T'Soni I presume?" Jane said as she stepped into view in plain sight of her, "I'm Commander Shepard, Council Spectre, we're here to save you."

"Oh, conjuring heroic figures from my imagination, a sure sign of my mental facilities failing," Liara sighed as John shook his head and step forward, "oh another one, this is terrible."

"The more the merrier I'd say," Jackson smiled as he stepped into view with Garrus right behind him as Wrex and Jason finally appeared in her line of vision, "that way you don't get lonely all by yourself."

The confused look on her face spoke volumes as she shook her head, "I must have lost my mind, with the dehydration, malnutrition and discomfort putting a strain on my sanity, it has all finally fallen apart, is this to be the end of me?"

"Melodramatic much?" Jason said as he stepped forward and tried to push on the glowing wall made of pure energy with no success before turning back John, "No good, can't force our way in because I'm out of explosives and I doubt anyone has the kind of time to hack into a Prothean system remotely."

"Going to have to find an alternate route to get inside and her out," John said as he stepped closer to glowing wall, "we'll be right back, we're here to save you."

"Please hurry," the pleading look practically screamed _I have to go to the bathroom _as she shook her head again, "I won't be going anywhere."

**BANG!**

"Scoped and dropped!" Garrus sang out as everyone turned around and engaged the remaining Geth that had decided to wait until now to attack, how considerate of them as Jason vaulted off the side of the catwalk and sought immediate cover.

In short order the remaining Geth were taken out, whatever items of loot, salvage and assorted parts from the Geth that Jason wanted, a few interesting components from a couple destroyed Drones and some kind of advanced optic on a Geth Sniper for now before they all reconvened at the massive mining laser that was literally impossible to miss.

Jane was already hard at work inputting the proper hacking algorithms by the time Jason stepped up next to John and glanced between the laser and the ground it was pointing at.

"Are we sure this is a good idea?"

"Nope, don't have a choice."

"Great."

"Yup."

"Eureka!" Jane shouted as the laser started up and let loose with a massive bolt of superheated plasma energy concentrated until it could literally melt away rock, "Momma likes it a lot like that!"

"Jane has offspring?" Garrus questioned as he turned to John, "is it normal for humans to bring their children into a combat zone?"

"Oh boy," Jackson sighed dramatically as Jason simply took the easier route and performed a quick facepalm at the antics of the cross species team while Wrex simply stood there waiting for the laser to finish its work, "how do we even start explaining this?"

"Don't," John replied as Jane shut down the laser and all but skipped over from where the console stood, "just leave it at that."

"We ready?" Jane asked before she set off with her pistol drawn as everyone followed after her, "Because here we go!"

"Why do I get the feeling that she secretly loves to demolish things in an overkill manner?" Jackson asked as they followed after her.

Wrex harrumphed, "Humans are crazy."

**XXX**

"Kill them, spare the Asari."

"Well, turns out Wrex was right," Jackson sighed as he dragged Liara behind cover and laid down a withering stream of covering fire at the advancing Geth units, "looks like I owe him ten credits."

"As the aforementioned figment of my imagination that has proven to be real, is now a time to be discussing payment of wagers?" Liara squeaked as she launched out a hasty biotic Warp at a nearby Geth before Jackson laughed.

Jason on the other hand had gone to the biggest threat, the other Krogan and tackled the much larger reptile before shoving a knife under its head crest twice to make sure it was dead before shooting the sole rocket trooper at point blank range while everyone else mopped up the rest of the Geth in short order.

No sooner had the last Geth fallen with an electronic warble, did the entire place start shaking violently.

"The mining laser must have made the ruins unstable!" Liara yelped as Jason snatched yet another souvenir and sprinted towards the exit with everyone else right behind him.

"RUN!"

(And so, with the threat of imminent death looming over their heads in the form of being crushed, the now completed team that would take Saren down made its way towards the exit to begin their perilous journey.)

At this Jackson turns around and presents the bird, "Fuck off narrator!"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

"Just so you both know, the Normandy isn't rated to land inside of active volcanoes it has the tendency to melt the hull and cook everyone in inside, you know for future reference." Joker signed off as Liara huffed.

"We almost die and your pilot makes jokes?" She glanced around, probably for the nearest exit no doubt as John shrugged.

"He saved our lives, he is entitled to a few bad jokes."

"I see, it must be a human thing."

From there, the cliché trading of information through a mind meld between Liara, John and Jane resulted in Liara all but passing out and for the Spectre couple to wander off towards their private quarters with massive headaches as Jason gathered up all of the purloined Geth goodies and walked over to his workbench with the single minded purpose of simply storing it all away for now and working on it later.

The Mako had been retrieved after they got outside of the tunnel, mere seconds before the entire thing collapsed, though Jackson and Garrus were already hard at work trying to breathe life back into the abused machine by fixing it, however it looked like it would take some time before that happened. All of the scrounged weapons, armor, omni-tools, mods and biotic amps had been given to Ashley for cataloging and maintenance as she was busy working at her table over in the far corner while Wrex was cleaning his own weapons over by his little corner, using the edge of his workbench to place various parts on until he began putting his weapons back together.

"Impressive whelp," Wrex grunted as he finished putting his shotgun back together and stepped off in the direction of his locker to put it away, "you might not be a liar."

Jason scoffed at how wrong that particular statement was as he began to stash the assorted bits and pieces under his workbench for later, bringing it up to a total of three Spitfires, two Geth assault rifles that were undamaged, a mangled Geth shotgun, some parts taken from several different units, a rocket launcher that had been heavily damaged and what he knew was a component of a Geth Colossus shielding regulator from all the memories downloaded into his head. Other than that, there were quite a few interesting pieces from the Geth Drones that would be a huge boon to anyone on the team that utilized combat drones, a smile at the thought of watching Tali upgrade her own drone, Chatika vas Paus if he remembered correctly as he heard someone move up behind him slowly.

Automatically he shifted his weight slightly, bending over a little closer to the workbench while mentally calculating the time it would take for him to turn around, he just wanted to mess with people, but he noticed something odd about these footsteps.

Not human for sure and a lot lighter than Wrex or even Garrus, Jason doubted that Liara would up and about after the double mind meld she had just done on top of her exhaustion from being trapped inside that containment field for three days, so the list was narrowed down to just one suspect.

"Tali, what can I do for you?" Jason smirked at the sound of a startled squawk before a familiar Quarian in a purple environmental suit stepped up next to him.

"How did you, oh my Keelah," Tali trailed off as she found herself staring at a whole workbench covered in Geth parts as her head snapped back and forth as her fingers began fidgeting a million miles per hour, "is all of this?"

"Yeah, I was just about to call you," Jason said as he nudged the larger pieces away from the edge of the table to make a little more room for his toolkit as he pulled the second stool over closer, "that is if you're not busy."

"No no no no," Tali assured as she took a seat and brought up scanning programs on her omni-tool and all but vibrated in what he was fairly certain had to sheer joy, "I notified Engineer Adams that I am currently working on deciphering the Geth components with you."

The sheepish way she tilted her head to the side while giving him a sideways look nearly made him smile, "That is…if you want me to help…if you don't I can leave."

Somewhere a small adorable puppy had just been kicked as Jason felt his heartstrings being tugged at, "No, I like having your technical expertise on hand, that and Commander Shepard is a little under the weather right now."

Tali perked up at that as she turned back towards the workbench, "So what first?"

"I'll let you pick, but first I'm going to get out of my armor," Jason said as he stepped over to his locker and began removing the undamaged segments of his armor while setting the partially damaged pieces aside so he could fix them later, the decision to inform the Council had been done over the communication hub as they were two days out from inspecting what seemed like a faulty beacon, hopefully not the one planet covered in Thresher Maws.

The same startled gasp brought his attention back from his wanderings as he found himself looking Tali dead in the face, er visor, as she hurriedly set whatever she was holding down and walked towards him.

"Keelah, are you alright?" She fretted over him for a few seconds longer than he would have liked as she glanced between the ruined portions of his armor and back to him as Jason felt something was about to come up.

"Are you wounded? Do you need medical attention?" Tali froze the second her medical scanners displayed the results of her hasty scan over his body as he simply crossed his arms and sighed.

"Tali, I'm fine."

"But how?" She tried the same scan again with the same results before she slumped down into the nearest stool in disbelief while giving him that same puppy dog look.

He was in deep and this told him exactly how bad he had it as he found himself unable to lie or change the subject, "I'm not a normal human being Tali."

"You said that before," Tali clasped her hands together and did that adorable little fidget again, "what did you mean by that?"

For a long moment Jason mentally wrestled with the idea of telling Tali his cover story because he couldn't tell her the exact truth of his origins, thanks to that mental roadblock left behind by Glyph there was no way of that cat getting out of the bag as he sighed and sat down on the other stool.

"The definition of normal is said to be the usual, average and typical state or condition," Jason explained as he gave Tali a sideways glance before turning back the workbench, "that is itself is actually wrong, because personally I believe normal to mean nothing out of the ordinary and you could say that I, and my brother Jackson my default, are extraordinary."

Jason sighed as he set down whatever he had been fiddling with, "Turns out both of us are heavily improved to say the least, none of it was, pleasant to say the least, so leave it at that."

"I'm sorry," Tali said as she patted his arm again, it actually felt kind of soothing come to think of it, "I didn't mean for you to be uncomfortable telling me this."

"It's fine, hand me that piece sitting in front of you."

From there, they simply got to work on conducting extensive researching and investigating over every scrap of Geth hardware, most of the actually software data had been corrupted beyond the point of even being code anymore, an effective way of sabotage come to think of it. Most of the hardware was intact, most of the weapon systems working perfectly as it turned out, save for that rocket launcher of course, but everything checked out, of course neither of them wanted to risk discharging a weapon inside the cargo bay, that would end badly.

Another thing that they failed to notice was that they were under the watchful eye of Jane Shepard.

**XXX**

"Sure is a sight eh Boss Lady?" Jane looked to her left where Juggernaut was standing next to her, how the giant had moved so silently was beyond her as she knew that she had been caught red handed watching his much smaller twin and her Quarian engineer (mentally fist pumping at the sight of them working together) across the cargo bay from her place at the Requisitions terminal.

"Of course," Jane smiled as she saluted him with her coffee mug, "the fact that those permits had paid off and we have more gear available because I now have an entire set of armor to replace after just one ground mission is delightful in my eyes."

"Uh huh," sounded like her lie wasn't believed for even a second as Jackson smiled and turned over to look at the busy pair, "wonder how long it will be before they go out on a date?"

"A date?" Jane narrowed her eyes as she snuck a glance at the levo-dextro couple sitting at that workbench before she noticed that telltale grin plaster across his face.

"Started a betting pool already, not many takers yet, but I think everyone will start catching on," Jackson giggled in a way that sounded maniacal to her as she found herself taking a small step backwards, "also another thing."

"Yes?"

"Running over hostile vehicles and ground forces is highly discouraged," Garrus spoke up as he appeared next to the pair, holding some kind of mangled piece of metal, "that way we don't have to pull parts of Geth out from around the drive axles."

"It was right in front of me with no room to maneuver," Jane blurted out even though the looks she received in return told her exactly how much she was believed, "it's not like I could've avoided them all."

"Somehow Boss Lady, I seriously doubt that a bunch of robots are suicidal enough to step in front of a moving tank in the middle of a firefight," Jackson deadpanned, "because if they were, then why would go through all the trouble of trying to kill us first?"

"How bad is the damage anyway?"

One thing that Jane learned as she hastily retreated back up to the second deck to the CIC after another half hour was that she should never ask the mechanics how badly her driving had subsequently destroyed a tank, enough though they both had all but face faulted when she informed them that they now had plenty to work on because it would be a few days before they managed to reach their next destination.

Of course, the glance over at the solitary workbench revealed that the biggest enigma onboard was talking to Tali while they worked flawlessly on what looked like a rocket launcher brought a smile to her face as she rode the elevator back up to the CIC.

John was of course pouring over the galaxy map controls, a couple planets in the local star cluster had a few mineral deposits worth checking out as Jane strode up next to him and handed him her cup of coffee for a drink.

"Thanks babe," John sighed as he cracked his neck, "how is the crew?"

"Alright, the Mako will be operational again in a few more hours according to our mechanics, Wrex wants a firing setup inside the cargo bay, Liara is busy pouring over her notes, Alenko and Ashley are at their respective stations and an interesting development is occurring down in the cargo bay right now." Jane said as she leaned up against the railing.

"Like what?" John asked before handing her mug back.

**"Jason and Tali sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g," **the sing song voice of Joker could be heard over the localized speakers as Jane rolled her eyes and directed an annoyed glance towards the front of the ship.

"You know Joker, some people find it rather irritating when you eavesdrop on people," John commented as he went back to work over the controls, "especially when one of them can snap you in half with just his mind."

**"I will take that under consideration Commander, however it doesn't hurt to look and those two are like attached at the hip, speaking in some sort of techno babble that makes my head hurt," **a short pause later, **"got to run."**

"Wonder how long it will be before someone catches him?" Jane shrugged at the question and went back to her thinking.

It was nice to see that her crew was getting along with each other, despite prejudices and entirely different amino acids, everyone pulled together to act as one solid team, granted those that she had worked with by now were alright, she figured that the others would be put together for the next mission in order to balance everything out. Her biggest concern was what to do with Jason and Tali, maybe put them together on a mission to see how well they worked together outside of the cargo bay perhaps?

John glanced up as he noticed a very familiar smile on his wife's face as he went through his mental checklist that any married guy worth his salt would have.

_Birthday? Nope._

_Anniversary? Not for another eight months, two weeks, nine days. _

_Pregnant? Whew, thank God for counter conceptive devices._

_Holiday? Negative._

_….Mother-in-law? Ah crap he had forgotten something. _

"You know I was thinking about what we should do with those two," John felt as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, _it is so good not be in trouble, _"it reminds me of us when we first met John."

Cue the violins and adorable kittens, John knew that once his wife got that romantic idea crammed into her head he would have to be on this toes as he idly wondered if he should warn the two in question before his wife got out of hand.

Then again one look at that bubbly look on her face told him that it was too late and she was already scheming.

_Sorry buddy, sucks to be you right now._

**XXX**

_AAACCCHHHOOOOOO!_

"Oh my goodness are you alright?" Tali all but screeched after she managed to remove herself from the ceiling as Garrus and Jackson watched on from behind the Mako as Ashley simply shook her head and went back to work as Wrex simply snorted in his sleep.

"Yeah, must be all this dust," Jason had felt this one come out of nowhere and it was a real doozy for one as he wiped his nose, "I don't have allergies."

Tali sighed, the edges of her eyes narrowing was all he could see through her visor as she turned back towards the workbench and shrugged before they went back to work.

So far they managed to take everything apart in order to see how it worked, ran multiple scans and diagnostics over each individual piece and put it back together if it was worth the effort in order to learn more about the Geth, even though Jackson or Garrus would stop by with bits and pieces they found while repairing the Mako, much to Tali's chagrin that Commander Shepard would intentionally ram into Geth platforms.

For a brief moment Jason thought about telling her that it wasn't a joke and thought the better of it, best for her to discover it firsthand.

"I can better improve my hacking algorithms to counteract them in the future," Tali was all but gushing over her omni-tool now, "with just a few strings of data unlocking more than we ever knew about the Geth in the last three hundred years."

"That and I picked up some interesting information about those," Jason gestured towards where the weapons were sitting against the far edge of the workbench, "that way we can improve barriers, shielding, armor plating and effective sabotage techniques against their equipment when we run into them again."

"Um Jason," Tali asked as she shut off her omni-tool, "what is going to happen to all of these parts now that we are done with them?"

That raised a valid question as he pondered it for a moment before turning back to Tali and giving her a look, "Did you want it for your Pilgrimage?"

"What? No no no, you misunderstand me, I was just asking if you needed it," Tali trailed off while her fingers began whirling like crazy as Jason laughed.

"The way I see it," Jason said as he gestured towards the surface of the workbench, "we've learned what we could from what we have now, so there isn't really any reason to keep any of this stuff, but you'll have to ask both Commanders for permission."

"Really?"

"Sure, in fact I was going to put all of this into storage to see what they wanted to do with it," Jason shrugged.

"Oh thank you thank you," she all but bounced up and down in her seat while clenching her fingers into fists, Jason was pretty sure he had just heard the female Quarian equivalent of a squeal, "sorry I just got excited."

_Down boy!_

"It's alright, that way you can take a couple parts back to the Flotilla once you finished your Pilgrimage."

Tali giggled as she placed her hands in her lap, "You are different from most people."

A raised eyebrow with a harp tilt of his head made her realize exactly how accurate her statement was before she waved her hands frantically, "I mean that most people wouldn't care about Quarians at all, in fact you're the first person who has asked about my Pilgrimage and home, well aside from Commander Shepard, uh Jane I mean."

"That's fine, I like the fact I'm not what you consider most people." It slipped out before he could stop himself as he found himself looking in Tali's widen eyes, surprised no doubt.

"Just kiss her already!" The moment was ruined after they heard the loud voice of Jackson from across the cargo bay next to the Mako as Garrus simply shook his head.

Jason looked down to finally notice that his five fingers were entangled with her three as he could practically see her blush through the visor as the both of them sprang apart like the other had been on fire.

"Eep!"

"Shove a sock in it muscle head!"

"Make me!"

"Oh Keelah, we were not going to kiss."

The unanswered question ran through his head as he watched Tali scurry back to the safety of the drive core as Jason launched a biotic Throw at his twin, _were we?_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Two days passed quickly, most of it went into repairing his armor and modifying his own weapons while working on a side project to implement a few things he had learned from "investigating" the Geth parts. Instead of creating a massively overpowered weapon that would beat even a Master X Spectre weapon hands down (he did have the parts and tools to do it) to start kicking the crap out of anything that moved, time was simply a larger issue as he made an ideal ammunition mod that would be very effective against the Geth.

"Experimental grade ammunition?" Jane wheezed after she finished performing an epic spit take that made the one Alenko did a few days earlier justice.

Everyone was present in the mess when Jason decided to inform them of that little tidbit of information, along with enough mods to hand out one to each member of the ground team as he launched in a short and sweet explanation for everyone, aside from Jackson of course.

"That is correct Commander," Jason nodded before he continued, "the primary function of this particular ammo mod is too deliver pinpoint electromagnetic strikes against sensitive transmitters, notably the ones typically found in kinetic shielding systems found on most armor suits and more importantly, the Geth rely heavily on shielding."

"Electromagnetic?" Alenko asked as he held his own mod, "Do you mean EMP?"

Stunned eyes turned towards him as Jason shook his head, _at least not yet, _"No, in order for that to happen, each round would have to be sufficiently charged with extra dark energy prior to firing and upon impact would have slightly less than desired penetration and accuracy results while providing the equivalent a small grenade explosion that would wipe out all electronic systems."

Jackson cocked his head, "Why haven't you figured out how to fix that yet?"

"Figured that it would be far easier to develop that idea into a grenade design," Jason shook his head while mentally figuring out how long it would take him to finish that project, "anyway this mod will have far greater effect against heavily shielded targets while only negating eleven to seventeen percent of overall efficiency per shot."

"Hold on," John said as everyone turned to face him now that he had the spotlight, "First we find out about you and your brother's little secret, then we learn about your biotics, which in a word scares me, your affinity for making bombs and now you are able to build and duplicate a working ammunition prototype that sounds too good to be true in less than three days?"

Now everyone present was focused on him as Jason let loose with a grin that received worried glances in return, "Heh, you'd be terrified of what I can do with the proper time, equipment and resources Commander."

"Will it work?" Wrex grunted as he finished his meal and held up his mod to securitize closely before sending a glare towards Jason.

"Yes, with far better outcomes than whatever phasic or disruptor mods we have available," Jason shrugged before taking a seat next to his twin, across from Tali as he took a bite, "it'll take me a week to get the grenade mod worked out and functioning at least."

"Back up," Jackson said while making the hand motions of moving backwards, "you'll have a real EMP grenade doohickey thing working soon? That is fucking sweet bro."

"I thought so myself, I call it Shocker for short."

"Word."

A shared bro-fist left several people present wondering what it meant as Jason went back to his meal, forcing it down his throat as he made the mental note to remove his ability to taste as well as his gag reflex if he was ever sent into another reality or dimension again, because if the Reapers didn't kill him, then the food would.

"Well, as much as I love knowing that you've discovered an edge over the Geth problem we'll no doubt be facing," Jane said as she turned to face everyone present, "we have a mission coming up in a few hours."

Ears perked up as everyone paid close attention as John brought up a projection on his omni-tool that made a holographic projection large enough for everyone to see clearly before Jane continued.

"As of oh-three hundred hours (three o'clock in the morning) we received word that the MSV Ontario was high jacked by a group of human biotic terrorists that have taken a single hostage, one Chairman Burns alive," Jane reeled off as both the location of the ship, detailed information on the ship itself and a ID of the hostage in question appeared, "it is our mission to go in and defuse the situation any way we deem necessary."

Jason remembered this mission, the L2 biotics that wanted retribution for the fact their amps had given them serious troubles and they were all suffering because of it, Alenko was tense at the mention of this and Jason figured that the usual route to Feros was going to wait awhile for now.

"Because of the nature of this mission, we've decided that alarming the terrorists prematurely would end badly, so the team for this mission will be Williams, Alenko and Jackson for now," John sent a glance towards Jason, "Chakwas hasn't cleared you for combat operations for at least another twenty-eight hours and you might fly off the handle again this time, no offense."

"None taken," Jason nodded as Jackson attempted to hide a laugh, "I've been told that I could be more…subtle."

"That leaves Wrex, Liara and Garrus to act as the supporting team in the event things turn south on us and if we need the extra firepower," John said as he received several nodding heads in return before turning to face the last member, "I've been informed by Chakwas that your injuries are healing at a much faster rate than expected and you will be on the next mission with Jason."

"Oh course," Tali chirped as Jane gave the two of them a small smile that had Jason wondering what exactly that woman had planned for them.

**XXX**

The sound of thudding boots alerted him to the arrival of several people having just returned from a successful mission from the way Jackson was smiling, Jason got back to work on altering a few weapons he had picked up from a spare locker as Jackson sauntered over.

"How'd it go?"

"Good, didn't have to fire a shot, we managed to talk them down and avoid a bloodbath," Jackson sighed as he began unbuckling segments of his armor, "you hold down the fort?"

"Yep."

Jackson finished putting his armor away before he plopped down next to Jason with a weary sigh that spoke volumes before he handed over a large credit chit with a grunt.

"Turns out she isn't interested in me," Jackson sounded majorly bummed out as he cradled his chin in the palm of his hand as Jason pocketed the chit and kept right on working, "finds it difficult to engage with social activities with me, but we worked together pretty well if I do say so myself."

"Let it go Jackson," Jason warned in a low tone, "it has to be this way unless we want to cause major problems with the timeline."

"How are you going to handle it?" Jackson asked after he looked around the cargo bay to make sure no one was paying them any mind, "I mean once we take down that douchebag Saren for good, we have two years to wait before we're back in action."

Jason knew where this was going, "And you're worried that I'll marry Tali and start a life somewhere else instead of letting her go back to the Fleet?"

"Yeah, I mean you two are pretty buddy-buddy with each other already," Jackson nudged him in the ribs a couple times to prove his point, "fact is, that can't happen."

"It won't," Jason hissed as he punched his twin in the kidney for revenge, "I know as well as you do that we can't change the timeline like that."

"Good, then I don't want to hear you all depressed and shit while we wait," Jackson frowned at a thought, "shit, what are we going to do for two years?"

"I've got a couple ideas," Jason's ears picked up the familiar footsteps of Jane heading towards them, "now act natural."

"OH ROMEO! OH ROMEO! WHERE ART THOU ROMEO?" Jason simply let his head slam into the surface of his workbench repeatedly with a resounding thud as Jackson dropped to one knee and began spouting Shakespeare at the top of his lungs, which was exactly how Jane found them, one acting the fool and the other giving himself a migraine.

"Uh is now a bad time?" Jane asked as she watched Jason lift his head from the table and shake it no before dropping his face back with a thud before Jackson began yelling, no opera singing if the ache in her ears was anything to go by, as loudly as possible.

"Does that answer your question?" Jason asked while pinching the bridge of his nose, making a mental note to discuss with Jackson in depth how to explain what 'act natural' meant to normal people as he motioned towards the empty stool, "Have a seat."

She was only too quick to take it and that sent a little red flag up in the back of his head as Jane waited until Jackson danced over to the Mako, performing an epic rendition of the Macarena by himself as everyone else in the cargo bay laughed at his antics before he got back to work on the tank.

"Well I have to admit, he sure is professional when we are in the middle of a mission," Jane scrunched up her nose, "but he can throw a wicked curveball at ya when he isn't holding a weapon."

"It's how he copes," noticing the look she sent his way he decided it was time to reveal a little bit about their past, "back when we were being trained, it was all they decided to teach him, to kill and fight, but then he discovered humor through jokes and old Earth television shows one day."

"I see," Jane said as they watched him tap dance around the side of the Mako while juggling a few tools, "he seems to look on the brighter side of things."

Jason snorted, "More like that he would have lost his mind if he didn't have something else to do with his spare time," he made the twirling motion next to his right ear, "he wasn't really all there to begin with at first, neither of us were."

By now he heard the pitter patter of dainty Quarian feet somewhere behind him that stopped just far enough away to be considered polite, but Jason knew that her suit could easily pick up the sound of his voice from that distance, odds were that Tali was going to ask Jane if she could keep the Geth parts.

"What do you mean at first?" Jane asked as Jason stopped messing with the rifle in front of him and let out a weary sigh, "Does it have to do with your past?"

"When we finally gained cognitive thought and were able to clearly think for ourselves, it was about a week before we were pulled out of the tubes," Jason let a shudder course through his body mostly for show, but he really had to shudder at the thought of being stuck in a giant tube full of jelly, "of course we had all the information from earlier downloaded into our heads so we knew how to walk, talk, eat, get dressed and such, but we didn't have much in the terms of emotions, thoughts and behavior."

"Wait, downloaded?" Jane asked as Tali could be heard stepping closer in the background, but Jason ignored it.

"The human brain is essentially a computer, once you figure out how to transmit signals to a developing brain as it slowly matures and grows, you can easily transmit raw data that used to detailed instructions on how to open a door or fire a weapon," Jason shrugged at the horrified look on Jane's face, he could only imagine what Tali looked like right now, "except instead of taking years to do it, they managed it in months."

"For the first little bit, we were nothing more than cyborgs, no emotions, no feelings, nothing that we could feel, aside from fatigue, hunger, the call of nature and pain of course," Jason spat out the last three words, "bastards."

"So it was like you were given memories," Jane said as she swallowed at the taste of bile raising in the back of her throat, "that you could use later on."

"Close enough I guess."

They both turned to watch Jackson perform a series of cartwheels around the Mako as Garrus stood by with a dumbfounded look on his face, earning a giggle from Jane as Jason shook his head, _showoff._

"We didn't get to test that ammo mod you made earlier," Jane said as he got the idea she was changing the subject on purpose to avoid ruining her mood or digging too deep for information, "but in theory it sounds like to will be a huge boon to our mission later on."

"Commander." Jason said with a slight nod of his head as a dismissal as he turned back to his work, hearing Tali take several fast steps backwards as Jane got up from her seat, no doubt wanting to appear like she hadn't been listening in, which would have made things awkward.

Having just told Jane a little bit more about his 'past' left a bitter taste in his mouth, here he was lying his ass off to someone he would help save the galaxy, but then again he would be in a psych ward faster than he could say 'Assuming direct control' if he even tried to tell them the truth and then it would seriously fuck up the timeline.

Everyone on this ship had to follow through with their lives in the same intended manner as Bioware described it or else everything they knew would change, no doubt for the worst it seemed as Glyph had informed them earlier, but as long each person went through the motions and everything would be alright. No that was a terrible way to explain it, changing major segments of the story, like saving John and Jane from dying or killing the Illusive Man before the final battle would only cause to disrupt the balance of this reality and that would be bad on so many levels. Things like improved weapons, armor and upgrades wouldn't affect the timeline in a negative manner, which was why he was in middle of making better weapons for the primary missions of focus, like Feros and Noveria, Virmire and Ilos, those kind of missions before they kicked Saren's scaly ass and killed Sovereign.

That meant, with a dreading look across the cargo bay, either Ashley or Alenko would have to die once they reached Virmire, but there had been something Glyph had said about how it didn't matter which one died or lived, in fact there was a small hope that both of them could live through Virmire.

Now he just had to figure out how to do that.

**XXX**

"Has anything turned up in the investigation on Jackson and Jason yet?" John asked the holographic representation of Captain Anderson, who was now the acting go-to boy from Udnia as the older man sighed.

"Nothing positive yet, mostly just rumors flying around and a long list of dead ends that give us nothing," Anderson sounded tired and for good reason too, "the best our boys in the Investigation Services have discovered, is that there used to be a private corporation that used to have some kind of connection to a group called Cerberus at one time, but that corporation went belly-up four years due to bankruptcy, trail is stone cold."

"Cerberus? Like that three headed dog in Hell or something?" John asked.

"Close enough, anyway they were rumored to be some radical group of fundamentalists similar to Terra Firma before all knowledge of that group just upped and vanished," Anderson shrugged, "mostly just water cooler talk nowadays."

"Keep looking, I want to know the moment anything pops up relating to those two or Saren for that matter," John sighed before crossing his arms, "I guess we won't get much help from the Council for tracking Saren down?"

"You have to admit, their favorite Spectre ups and commits genocide and now they have to explain how it all happened without appearing as the ones to blame," Anderson looked off to the side for about a minute before turning back to the camera with a scowl on his face, "I have to go Shepard, Udnia is calling, good luck out there."

"Need me to come spring you out?" John asked, "As a Spectre I can allocate the proper manpower and resources for my mission."

"Ha sorry Shepard, someone had to take the fall for this and you need to be focused on your mission of hunting down Saren." Anderson nodded before the connection ended, causing John to sigh and slouch against the railing.

"Any news?" Jane asked as she stepped over from the corner of the room and embraced her husband after he shook his head.

"Nothing yet, Admiral Hackett was nice enough to thank us for resolving the situation with Chairman Burns and sent mission critical funding our way as well as some spare equipment we can use," John sighed before wrapping an arm around her shoulders, "something on your mind honey?"

"Had a chat with Jason, something for later, but I also ran into Tali and she asked about the Geth parts we had laying around," she gave him a stern as he opened his mouth to explain, "she just wanted a few pieces to take back to her people."

"I promised Hackett that he would have some samples dropped off at an Alliance R&D lab for the eggheads to play around with," he cocked his head at the look she was sending his way, "after we finish up at Feros, but anything after that is fair game for her in my book."

Jane smiled before she kissed him, "You are the best honey, I'll tell her the good news at chow later tonight."

"Chakwas send you a message about all the headaches she has been having?" John shook his head, "Apparently she has gotten dozens of messages and more than one general order signed by a couple of high ranking officers to hand over the medical files she has on both Jason and Jackson."

Jane let out a melodramatic groan, "I totally forgot to remind Jason that he needed to go see her for a checkup to get cleared for active duty, oh well, guess he can do it later."

"I'm here for ya babe," John chuckled before giving her a gentle squeeze, "do you really think taking Jason and Tali with you on Feros is a good idea?"

"Also the same reason why you think taking Wrex and Garrus is a good idea as well," Jane countered before she slipped out of his embrace, "we'll leave Kaidan, Ashley, Jackson and Liara to act as backup so they can recover from the last mission they were just on, no sense in back to back missions for everyone."

"Except us of course, but we're trained for this," John sighed as he followed after his wife out of the com room towards the CIC, "though I still think you want those two together for some reason."

"I have no idea what you mean."

**XXX**

_AAACCCHHHOOOO!_

"Agh, sonofabitch not again," Jason cursed as he wiped his nose and placed the now finished shotgun off to the side and grabbed the next one, "that really has to freaking stop."

"Bless you," Jackson said as he dropped his elbows onto the table and looked around, "you busy right now? I got a poker game in the mess about to go down and was looking for a couple more players."

Sitting out in front of him were three completed assault rifles, two shotguns and four pistols, but he figured that he had another two assault rifles, at least one shotgun and a sniper rifle before he moved on to the two dozen hand grenades minimum because he had feeling that they were going to need them soon, namely because Feros was coming up.

"Pass, got work to do," Jason waved towards the collection of spare weaponry sitting in front of him before shrugging, "maybe later?"

"Sure thing," Jackson clapped him on the shoulders before turning to leave, "later bro."

Jason grunted as he managed to pry apart the housing around the guts of the shotgun he was working and began striping it down because he had a brainchild that he really wanted to implement into an existing weapon design, that and because it had never come up before.

He was so absorbed in his work that he almost missed the sounds of Tali walking up behind him as he pretended to not notice until she cleared her throat, causing him to jump and turn around, "Oh hey Tali, did you need something?"

He couldn't even feel guilty about taking her line as he motioned towards the spare stool, which she took, "What are you working on?"

"Upgrading," he smiled as she hesitantly picked up a section that belonged to the shotgun he had just taken apart, "figured I had the time to tweak a couple weapons into better shape."

"I see, want any help?" Tali asked as she watched pick up a plasma cutter and apply it to a spare Lancer Mk III frame.

"I'd happily take all the help I can get," Jason chuckled as he continued his work with the torch, "Could you strip the parts off it until you only have the barrel and trigger assembly please?"

Tali simply nodded and began taking each piece apart with surgical precision as Jason kept doing what he needed to until he had the proper cut and began filing the rough edges down as he watched Tali out of the corner of his eye.

Sure enough she had the weapon in pieces before he was even finished building the framework, but he noticed that she seemed hesitant about something, her body language could fill a book as she sat there fidgeting. He wondered if she was going to ask about earlier, maybe confess to eavesdropping or something along those lines, so he quickly finished what he was working on and gave her a look, "Not a fan of poker either?"

"What?" That cute way she perked up made a small smile slide across his face as her fingers wrung with each other for dominance, "Oh you mean earlier? No I came to see if you needed help because you hadn't gone up to the mess hall yet."

"Eh, only really go up there when I am hungry or for a mission brief," Jason shrugged as he kept applying the final touches to the mount, "don't sleep up there anyway."

"I've been meaning to ask you," Tali squirmed in her seat as she tried to avoid looking at him, but Jason held her gaze as she blurted out, "how did I end up in a sleeper pod a few days ago?"

That had been bothering her? Jason smiled, "You had overworked yourself and fallen asleep so I carried you up there rather than leave you down here."

"Oh…" was that a blush he could barely see through her visor as she bowed her head, fingers tapping on the edge of her mouthpiece, "I didn't mean to cause you any trouble."

"Tali," she looked up at that, "it wasn't any trouble at all, just the right thing to do and I owe you for all the great help you've been."

"Thanks," yep there was definitely a blush in there somewhere as he felt a smug feeling coming on before Tali tilted her head, "what are you working on anyway?"

_Ladies and gentlemen please hold your applause until the end, _"I thought about putting two weapons together in one platform to allow more fluidity to the shooter," Jason explained while holding up the assault rifle frame he had just finished welding a mount on and the disassembled shotgun in the other hand before placing them together, "that way you could switch between a close range weapon and a medium range weapon without having to swap weapons."

Tali's head was bobbing up and down as she followed along, "Why a shotgun and an assault rifle though?"

Jason had to remind himself that she had never heard of the concept of a grenade launcher underneath an assault rifle before, "The shotgun will have a Carnage feature that can deliver a powerful hit against a target, either disabling the shielding or armor, but it would take too long for the weapon to cool down to fire again, with me so far?"

Tali nodded before Jason pulled them apart again and wiggled the assault rifle frame to emphasize his point, "This will have a lot farther range and accuracy compared to a shotgun, but it lacks the brutal punch of a shotgun at point blank range."

Something clicked inside her helmet, "If the weapons are attached together, than all you would have to do is simply pull a different trigger," Tali bobbed her head up and down, "I like it."

Somewhere angels wept tears of joy as Jason smiled and set the pieces down in front of him, "I thought so, most of our fights so far have been either too far away for a shotgun or too close for an effective assault rifle burst to take down the target, this way someone could have the ability to do both in the same weapon."

A moment of silence as Tali opted to start working on the shotgun that would be placed underneath the assault rifle Jason was putting back together now that he had the mount in place, he kept quiet and watched what she was doing to it. First she removed the housing around the shotgun itself, striping it down to the bare bones and wires before removing a couple heat sinks that were built around the barrel to help keep the weapon cool whilst firing, then she pulled the installation mod slots off and then completely took it apart.

Once Jason figured out what she doing, he smiled and began doing the same to the guts of the assault rifle itself proper, mentally kicking himself for not thinking of what she had been thinking of, which was downright brilliant.

Simply welding two weapons together was a crude method, but linking the heat exchangers together would allow both weapons faster cooldown times as well as increasing the number of shots fired from either weapon, which in itself could be dangerous if the operator didn't pay attention to the heat gauge and suddenly needed to either shoot farther away or at something three feet away. Connecting the heat exchangers could allow either the shotgun or assault rifle to fire more rounds before it would need to vent, while still allowing the operator to switch between either weapon, Jason thought how he was going to make it up to her before he an idea.

But first they worked together to connect the two different heat exchangers, the shotgun was made for a few powerful shots while the assault rifle had limited power, but increased number shots, but they managed it after several attempts in silence, neither one of them having to say a word when they need to share tools or need something out of reach.

Right up until Jason was reaching for the last section of housing that would hide the sensitive internals on the side of the rifle before he found his own hand entangled with Tali's.

For a moment they simply sat there in shock, well to be fair Jason was in awe at how soft her suit was around her fingers as they looked up at each other, he knew that her blush had reached epic proportions if he could see the flushed skin through her visor as their fingers tangled together, the panel section forgotten.

"I'm sorry."

"I didn't see that you had it."

They managed to disengage their fingers and sheepishly looked at that panel sitting on the bench in front of them before Jason chuckled, "Sorry about that Tali."

"What is so funny?" Tali asked.

"I just remembered an old vid I had watched one night, can't remember the name of it, but there was a scene where a male and a female human had accidently done something like that," Jason laughed before he continued, "and well the rest of the vid was about how they tried to explain what they felt, just an old human vid."

A cute giggle broke free as Tali laughed, "That is pretty funny."

Jason used her momentary distraction to snatch the panel and put in place before he performed a function test of each weapon, the shotgun underslung like a grenade launcher that cycled perfectly and short of firing a couple rounds off inside the cargo bay to make sure it worked, Jason figured that he would test it once they arrived.

"Well it seems to work just fine," Tali said after Jason handed it to her to inspect, which she did after she ran a current detector through the primary heat exchanger connection on the assault rifle before setting it down on the table, "guess we'll have to test it later."

"Yup," Jason grinned as he wandered over towards the locker containing spare weapons and found what he was looking for and wandered back over to the workbench, "now we have another project."

"Really?" Tali did the cute bouncing on her toes again as she watched him place the shotguns down, "I'll grab another rifle."

"No need," Jason said, swatting her hands away from the assault rifles he had finished modifying earlier and handed her one of the shotguns, a Storm Mk II model, twin to the one he was holding, "we're going to put these two together?"

Tali was silent for about a minute before she finally understood what he was getting at, "Putting two shotguns…together?"

"Of course, side by side operating off the same trigger will have twice the firepower compared to just a single shotgun on its own," Jason grinned as another idea hit him, "and once we synch up the Carnage feature…"

Her head snapped to the left so fast he could clearly hear the soft cracking of her neck as her tone became sultry, "Now you have my attention."

**XXX**

Jackson froze for a second instead of scooping the pile of chips, credit chits and assorted mods that acted as the pot towards him as everyone sitting around the table noticed him not moving.

"Juggernaut?" Jackson snapped out of it as he found Jane waving a hand in front of his face, with John, Alenko, Garrus, Ashley, Wrex and Joker all watching intently, "You alright big guy, you just kind of spaced off on us."

"Didn't you feel it?" Jackson could feel beads of sweat running down the back of his neck, "That sense of forbidding just now?"

Joker sighed, "You don't have to be so dramatic about winning the last six hands in a row, so stop rubbing it in already."

Jackson ignored the pile of winnings in front of him as he latched onto Joker's shoulders gently and shook him slightly, much to the collective horror of everyone present as Jackson went off on a rant.

"Petty gambling aside, there was just a sense of forbidding that heralds a new doom," everyone sweat dropped as Jackson ran his fingers through his hair as Joker checked himself for any new injury, "I could feel it closing in around us like a shroud of death of destruction."

"Seems like the big guy is spooked," Jane said as she glanced in the direction of the medical bay wondering if she would be able to reach a syringe of something that would knock the big guy out for a couple hours until she heard something that drew her attention back to Jackson.

A laughing cackle that made several people present uncomfortable was coming from the normally jolly giant as Jackson rasped, "I wasn't afraid of it at all."

Wrex perked up as Jackson slammed his hands down on the table with another cackle as the wild eyed look made several people cringe, it just made him excited that something was about to happen.

Jackson smothered his cackle with a leering grin, one that made even John smile softly, "I welcome this sense of anarchy and chaos, because it will bring much bloodshed and death when it arrives."

A look around the room revealed everyone hanging onto his every word, "I will wait for it."

Jackson suddenly shook his head before looking around quizzically, "Sorry about that, I blacked out for a second, did I miss anything?"

Everyone sweat dropped again and blinked, well Wrex was feeling excited by the upcoming mission, John had a feeling that he was going to get along just fine with the big guy and Ashley looked like she in desperate need of cigarette.

Or a little privacy.

"Anyone up for another hand?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

"What in the name of Sam Hell is that?" Jackson coughed after he wiped his lower lip, Alenko having just become the latest victim of a spit take as he point at the weapon Jason was holding before he noticed Tali standing next to his brother, "And that?"

Everyone cramped around the airlock turned to notice the assault rifle Jason was holding that was a lot bulkier than a typical rifle and the shotgun Tali was holding looked a lot more menacing with twin barrels.

"Late night project that paid off," Jason smiled as he glanced around, "I see you all have the weapons I stashed in your lockers."

Garrus glanced down at his rifle before looking back up, "What did you do to it?"

"Increased the size of the internal heat sinks and tightened up the trigger for easier firing," Jason reeled off before pointing at the pistol Jane was inspecting, "enlarged heat sinks for faster cooldown cycling, installed a scram rail for improved accuracy and a laser sight for ease of operation."

John arched an eyebrow at the sight of his wife dropping to her knees and hugging herself while tears of joy rolled down her face for several seconds, making a mental note to give Jason more materials to build a few more so he could hold onto them for later.

"We have Geth com chatter as well as the colony beacon on the scope," Joker said as he masterfully controlled the Normandy into a landing approach, "looks like the place is empty of anything organic or android."

Jackson scowled as he peered through the viewport in front of him before draining the last of his coffee, "I don't like it, no welcoming committee or hostiles to be seen, it could be an ambush."

"Good thing we have guns," Wrex grumbled as he adjusted his shotgun and scowled at the door, "could we hurry things along?"

"Be patient," Joker chided as the Normandy came to a halt, "docking procedure complete, waiting on you guys to move it."

"Everyone on me," John said as he lead the way with Garrus and Wrex flanking him, Jane taking up behind them as Jason joined Tali in the airlock as it ran through the impossibly long and downright annoying decontamination sequence.

Jason noticed that Tali was fidgeting again as he checked his new weapon over, knowing that if it crapped out he still a Mantis sniper rifle and a pistol to defend himself or until he snagged another weapon from the abundance of mind controlled vendors, crates and random nooks and crannies they would no doubt find as the airlock opened, both squads stepping out.

The air was humid and had a certain heaviness to it that reminded him of the Thorian, he hated that thing, but first they had all the Geth to go through, some of those Krogan and whatnot as he noticed that the random colony worker was standing there talking to John and Jane in that same monotone that practically screamed _I am not in control of my own body, help!_

"Fai Dan is up the stairs past the freighter," Jason discreetly looked off to the side where a rocket would be coming as he noticed movement on his HUD, "you'll need to speak with him for more…"

"GET DOWN!" Jason yelled as he brought up his rifle and pulled the trigger, happy to see that the rifle functioned perfectly as the Geth trooper he just shot dropped before a stray rocket whizzed over their heads and exploded against the wall somewhere behind them.

Everyone else in the squad simply opened fire as the worker took refugee behind a nearby crate to wait out the fire fight.

Once the last trooper went down courtesy of a Carnage blast from the attachment on the bottom of his rifle, Jason smiled as he took point, stepping past the mangled piles of parts before reaching the stairs, silently waving for everyone else to follow him.

The Hopper had a couple of friends waiting for them this time, upon discovering what a biotic armed with a very dangerous weapon could do, but it turned out that Tali got four to his two with her new shotgun. That and she was standing about ten feet behind him, so she wasn't the target that had unknowingly walked into an ambush, so she had the time to plot where the damn things would land next, what Hoppers really needed was some creativity from where they would launch themselves off from, clearing up the motion detector once the last one went down.

"Nice job you two," Jane laughed as the rest of them caught up, "anymore up ahead?"

"Hold on," Tali said as she raised her arm and did something before a familiar combat drone appeared, "go get them Chatika!"

An electronic chirp later and the glowing drone flew off ahead of them with everyone right behind it as it floated up past the stairs and around the next corner where it discovered a trio of Geth troopers and a single Geth sniper engaged with a handful of colonists as everyone exploded into action.

"Go for the optics Chatika!" Rang out a familiar battle cry that Jason found funny even though he charged into the midst of the Geth and selected his shotgun feature without the Carnage option enabled and fired.

The sniper went down to the combined fire from John and Garrus, both deciding to call it tie because they had fired exactly the same time as Wrex blasted a trooper at point blank range before Jane launched some kind of sabotage attack that fried a second one.

"Excellent teamwork everyone," Jane said as she delivered the final coup de grace execution style before they relieved the colonists that looked roughed up, tired and spacey on top of everything else.

"Find Fai Dan," they said, "our leader will have the answers you seek," most of them looked stoned as Hell, "he'll tell you what you need to know," it was slowly becoming a mantra inside his head, "Fai Dan knows what to do."

"You Fai Dan?" Jason about wept tears of joy at the sight of the familiar NPC who was actually a living being, so saving his ass would have to come later as Jane and John went into full Commander Shepard mode.

"We've got Geth in the tower!" Random colonist number one yelled as the electronic warble heralded their appearance, they should really stop doing that to give themselves away.

Wrex was the one to lead to the assault on the tower, blasting the first seven troopers, two snipers and one Hopper before a rocket nearly took his head off, by then they had moved up stairs into that room with the hole in the ceiling as a dropship arrived with reinforcements.

Jason kept his cool as he laid down covering fire and added his own Carnage blasts to whittle down the defenses of that Prime stomping its way towards them as everyone just unloaded on the damn thing, a couple of grenades joining the fray before it toppled over, headless.

"Take them down!" John yelled as he ducked behind cover in time to avoid a hail of gunfire from across the room as about a dozen troopers appeared from thin air and started marching towards them.

"Scoped and dropped!"

"Sabotage out!"

"Weaklings!"

"Left side!"

"GRENADE OUT!"

The clash of gunfire, explosions, digital death throes and organic yells finally tapered off once the last Geth was wiped out as the dropship wisely bugged out, Jason heading to the far end of the room where he found plenty of things to hack into as Tali joined him, followed by Jane.

Stashing the entire collection of free weapons, armor and credits back on the Normandy would have to wait until later as they all trooped back to where Fai Dan was still standing to grill him for all he was worth.

**XXX**

"So we get stuck with the job of turning off the Geth transmitter, finding some power cells and finding some Varren to eat?" Jason sighed as he remembered all the times he had ignored these particular side quests in favor of heading straight for the Thorian proper and obtaining the Cipher.

John and his squad would wait up by the freighter in the event more Geth decided to show up while the other squad, Jane, Jason and Tali respectively, were down in the tunnels running errands for the beleaguered colonists, who were at the end of their ropes as well as being controlled by a millennia old plant with a thing for mind control, yah.

"Yes, figured we can finally test out this Shocker ammo you managed to cook up as well as those guns you two built," Jane smiled as the others from the Normandy arrived in full armor and armed to the teeth, "the rest of them will be providing protection for the colony as well as being on call for us."

"Something feels off about the colonists," Jason said as they set out for the lower tunnels, Jane taking point this time as Tali brought up the rear, "are they acting kind of strange to you?"

"What makes you say that?" Tali chirped as they reached the first water valve without incident and waited as Jason got it open, "Every single one of them is exhausted, hungry and thirsty, and that takes a toll on people."

Jason rolled his eyes as he yanked the valve handle hard enough to open it, but nothing happened, "Must be another valve up ahead." Jane commented as she opened fire at an approaching Geth trooper that had been wandering around minding its own business.

"Not one person expressed how thankful they were to see us," Jason answered after a brief firefight cleared out the nearby Geth as Tali worked on the second valve, "it was like they all had the same thing on their minds and that was to direct us to Fai Dan."

"These people are colonists, not trained soldiers or used to combat," Jane calmly explained even as she pitched a grenade at an approaching Prime, how one of those managed to fit inside these tunnels was beyond him as he sent a Carnage blast towards it, "it takes a lot out of people."

Rather than arguing that point with them anymore, Jason watched as Tali used her tandem Carnage shot for the first time as a massive bolt of superheated mass accelerator fire zipped down the tunnel and slammed into the towering Prime like a runaway train, completely demolishing the Geth unit. The recoil on the other hand was a bit much for the slight Quarian as it drove her backwards a couple of steps as Jason stepped into her path, quickly intercepting her before she fell and he ducked behind cover with her in tow.

"Ouch," Tali groaned as she shook her arms to get rid of the tingle she no doubt feeling because the recoil would've made his arms go numb, "that was a little more than expected."

Jane took one look at Tali cushioned by one arm as Jason promptly tossed a grenade before taking his arm back and firing a short burst over the top of that rock they were hiding behind, thinking to herself if she and John acted like that sometimes in the middle of a mission.

Turned out that the Shocker ammo was a success in her book, not only did it effectively whittle away the shielding, but it also sent any Geth struck directly into a sort of electronic seizure that looked like it was trying to dance, an amusing sight as Jane made sure her HUD tactical vid recorder caught the few times it happened on camera for later as they reached the third valve.

"I'll take this one," Jane said as she applied the proper amount of force onto the sensitive valve system in a direct manner, failing to notice the other two standing behind her sweat dropping at the sight of her kicking it repeatedly until it finally worked, "got the water going, now onto our next job."

"What the heck is that guy doing down here?" Jason asked as he pointed towards the only other person this far in the tunnels, that crazy wigged out guy fighting the Thorian.

**XXX**

"You know I think knocking that guy out was just a tad bit harsh," Jane said as the three of them were sneaking through a shorter hallway, towards the transmitter Jason figured as he was taking point, "we could've taken him back to the colony to get help."

"Something was seriously wrong with that guy Commander," Jason explained as he carefully crept closer to the door that would open to reveal a whole fuck ton of Geth in less than a minute, "call me crazy but I think he was fighting against something in his own head."

"Like a mental basket case?" Jane snorted as Tali summoned her drone again just in time for the door to open with a whoosh and dump out a handful of Geth, but they weren't the problem.

It was the trio of Krogan armed with nasty looking shotguns behind them that were the real problem as they charged.

"Holy shit!" Jason swore as he unleashed as many biotic Throws as he could, knocking the larger reptiles back, along with hitting a few of the Geth before he tossed a couple grenades and opened fire.

Jane and Tali hadn't been idle during that time either, Chatika zoomed over to zap an unsuspecting Geth trooper in the face as Jane launched her own biotic attack on another Geth that allowed her to kill it before the Krogan started getting back up.

And boy were they pissed.

"Really wish that we brought some heavy muscles along with us," Jane shouted as they found themselves forced out for cover and back outside the narrow corridor before they ended up getting shredded under the combined fire, "at least Wrex or Juggernaut."

(Elsewhere Jackson scratched the side of his head before turning to Wrex, "Did you hear something?")

Jason rolled his eyes before taking something out of a pouch on his belt and priming it before he bowled it towards the angry Krogan underhand as he reached over and pulled both women down behind something abruptly.

A simple flick of his wrist triggered the detonator in his omni-tool which in turn set off the bomb he had just thrown down the crowded hallway, the explosion was deafening and did a wonderful job of clearing out the hostiles in one fell swoop as he poked his head to see for himself if the coast was clear.

Damn, note to self, build some smaller bombs next time for just taking out soft targets, though the walls had just gotten a free coat of paint, so much better than the usual dark and creepy atmosphere around as Jason stepped through the bits and pieces that didn't get blown to smithereens.

"Woah," Jane was in awe as she was looking around, "what do you make those things out of because I need to get me some of those."

"When did you have the time to make bombs?" Tali asked as she sent a questioning look his way.

"I get bored," Jason shrugged as they rounded the corner to reveal the Geth transmitter just sitting there, having been protected from the explosion as Tali quickly got to work running scans over it as well as removing panel coverings while Jane stood off to the side pouting because she had been denied her right to toss a grenade at it.

"Long range signal boosting transmitter," Tali rattled off as she began pulling cables and such out of the guts of it while Jason decided to help by removing the panels on the other side, making damn sure his camera was running in order to collect as much evidence about this thing before blowing it up, "capable of transmitting at least ten kilometers, interesting."

Jason made his own 'discovery' as well from his side, "Found an actual connection port, synching it up with my omni-tool now for a data mine."

Jane opted to stand back and watch before Tali suddenly jumped backwards as sparks began flying out of it, "The Geth realized that their network was compromised! They've initiated a remote overload!"

"Finally!" Jane cried happily as she tossed the grenade into the guts of the transmitter after Jason stepped back, using a biotic Barrier to protect himself from arching electricity.

**KA-BOOM!**

"Bosh'tet," Tali grumbled as she waved a hand in front of her face to clear away the smoke before she turned toward Jason, "did you get anything?"

"Some, at least six terabytes," Jason sighed as he noticed how sluggish his omni-tool was responding as well, "seems that I've nearly overloaded this thing as well."

"Any signs of remote takeover? Automated system purge? Firewall corruption?" Tali asked as she stepped forward to peer over his shoulder to watch the streams of data on his omni-tool before she let out that adorable squeal, "It's all intact! Perfectly contained!"

Jane sighed as she watched her Quarian tech all but tackle her overpowered biotic guru in semblance of a victory dance, it was just too cute to ignore as she made sure her tactical vid recorder got that juicy tidbit on video.

Jason noticed this fact as he patted Tali on the shoulder, "Tali, focus, we'll decrypt it after we get back to the Normandy, but for now I can't launch any tech attacks."

"Oh, sorry," Tali jumped back as though he'd been on fire, if Jane didn't know any better she'd venture a guess that Tali was blushing, "I got carried away."

"Don't worry Jason," Jane smiled now that she finally had the attention of her squad, one looking guilty and the other just indifferent, "I'm sure Tali will make sure nothing happens to you, won't you Tali?"

Tali appeared to be confused for a second, "Of course Commander, I was just relieved that we managed to download sufficient data from the Geth, we could learn so much about them now that we have it."

Jason checked his assault rifle before tapping Tali on the shoulder and beckoning her to follow him as Jane took off in the lead, doubling back towards the door that lead to where the Varren were holed up in the same room as the power cells.

"Hold up Commander," Jason said just as they reached the door, "I'm picking up movement on the other side."

"Same, could be Geth, Tali prep your drone to go in once I open the doors."

Chatika flickered to life again as Jane hit the control switch to open the doors as the brave little drone (that could!) zoomed in as fast as it could go, Jason discreetly palming a grenade while lighting up with biotic aura, knowing full well what was on the other side of the door.

"Varren!" The cry came about four seconds ahead of the first reptile while Jane backpedaled furiously to put some distance between herself and an angry predator, "Go loud!"

Jason was already tossing both his grenade and his biotic attack before utilizing the shotgun attachment to take of the first two while Tali put her own shotgun to good use, both of them standing shoulder to shoulder firing as Jane stood off to the side firing her own sidearm and sending out a series of biotic attacks to keep most of the Varren at bay. In a very short while, nine dead Varren were scattered around in front of them, Chatika having zapped another one before it get eaten between a set of jaws that could easily chew through body armor as Jane motioned for Jason to take point.

There was still that Alpha Varren somewhere as he carefully inched forward, checking over by the derelict vehicles that held the power cells before glancing to his left, _where was that damn thing at?_

His motion tracker pinged from the one place he didn't look as time slowed down.

"LOOK OUT!"

**XXX**

Tali knew something was wrong the second she watched Jason spin around and look up, her natural instincts screaming at her to move, but it was too late as something slammed into her back hard enough to send her to the ground, momentarily stunned.

Alarms were blaring at her, no suit breeches though as she shakily tried to get up once that crushing weight vanished after she hit the ground, something slamming into the side of her helmet hard enough to make her vision falter for a few seconds. Ancestors it hurt, Tali gasped for breath as she felt someone pull her upright again, the sudden movement causing a bout of nausea to sweep through her as she turned to look up Commander Shepard's worried face.

Unable to speak, Tali nodded her head while clutching at her chest, her onboard medical computer detected three minor rib fractures so it caused her a lot of pain to try and breathe just now as she hurriedly looked around, wondering what hit her before her vision cleared up enough for her to see the sight in front of her.

Animalistic snarls, growls, grunts and screeching could be heard as she found herself staring at a rather bizarre sight as she felt Shepard pull her backwards by looping an arm around her midsection and walking backwards, just as a hind leg topped with razor sharp claws ripped through the soft ground where she had just been sitting a second earlier as Tali attempted to comprehend what she was seeing.

Jason was _wrestling _with a Varren?

He actually had the Varren by the jaws, one hand holding the bottom while the other held the top portion of the jaw open as the much larger and clearly stronger Varren was attempting to knock him over by pushing forward, but Jason was holding his ground. In fact, the biotic energy swirling around his body became a much sharper contrast before Tali witnessed something she would have never believed if she hadn't seen it with her own two eyes.

"Keelah," Tali whispered as she struggled to get to her feet with the assistance from Shepard.

The Alpha Varren was several hundred pounds heavier and covered in old scars from past battles, but it appeared as though it was violently thrashing its head and pulling away from the human holding its mouth open, but Jason was having none of that before he did something that stunned her.

"FUCKING DIE!"

With a quick jerking motion, Jason pulled the jaws apart as hard as he could with spectacular results, the sound of breaking bones could be felt from where she was standing as the Alpha Varren let out an agonized yelp that turned into a wet gurgling sound after Jason flipped it onto its back and plunged a long knife into the soft underbelly in one fluid motion before a mass of biotic energy coursed through him and into the wounded Varren.

Tali had to turn her head in time to avoid the deluge of guts and Varren blood that went flying after the biotic attack literally ripped it apart.

Did Jason just kill a Varren with his bare hands? Tali mused as she rolled back over and managed to climb to her feet as Shepard stepped forward.

She would have to tank him later, but for now she need some medi-gel.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

That had been way too close, Jason thought to himself as he secured the power cells from the derelict vehicles while Jane helped Tali recover from nearly getting crushed under a six hundred pound animal, no injuries thank God, but just got the wind knocked out of her.

"Got the cells," Jason said while patting one of the four thirty kilo power cells dangling off his shoulder once he reached where the other two were standing, "no more Varren in the vicinity either."

He was mildly surprised when Tali stepped forward and gave him a hug, failing to notice how Jane nearly burst into a fit of giggles as he reciprocated the hug by patting her gently on the back with his one free hand, feeling his heartstrings twang at the sight of her shoulders shaking, "It's alright Tali, you're okay."

"Not me," Tali sobbed as she tightened her grip around his chest, "you nearly kill yourself saving my life, that's twice now, and I'm a terrible addition to the team if I keep getting in trouble."

"No you are not, I should've looked up before walking right past that thing," a glance over at the steaming pile of organs, bones and rendered flesh brought a strange sense of gratification to his ego now that it was dead, "we still have a job to do okay? Think you can still protect me?"

(Jane Shepard denies even to this day that she didn't swoon and make a high pitched squeal at the cute scene in front of her, claiming to have been busy with perimeter security.)

That got a laugh out of Tali as she shook her head and stepped back, if she could have wiped away her tears, she would have been doing that now, but her suit evaporators were doing that for her no doubt as she took another step back and pounded her fist onto his shoulder, "Bosh'tet."

"There she is," Jason mentally added another point to the scoreboard in his head after he saw how her eyes narrowed through her visor, a smile, before he handed her a vial of medi-gel, "this will have to hold you over until we reach the medical bay."

"Thank you," Tali chirped as she took one of the power cells off his hands, "I needed that."

"Saving the galaxy by killing Varren, handing out free medi-gel and administering hugs," Jason shrugged before he turned towards Jane, "all in a days' work."

"Alright you two," Jane made a shooing motion with her hands, "enough of that, I don't need the two of you getting all hot and heavy in the middle of a mission just yet, save it for the ship."

Tali abruptly did a one-eighty after she realized what appeared to be harmless comforting seemed to be something more in the eyes of her commanding officer, clasping a free hand over her visor with a groan. Jason simply turned to face Jane and arched an eyebrow before he stepped past her and took point after shaking his head at the nerve of that woman.

Though he wouldn't admit the reason he had taken point was to hide the blush on his face after he entertained the idea in his head.

**XXX**

Jackson abruptly snapped out of his silent vigil and looked around frantically, startling Alenko and Liara who had been sitting nearby after completing a few rounds around the colony.

"What is it?" Alenko asked as he brought up his sidearm and joined the larger man in his frantic search for something while John wandered over to investigate, "Did you hear something?"

Jackson shrugged, "I sensed a disturbance in the force."

Everyone within earshot sweat dropped before he turned around and deadpanned in a serious voice without as so much as a single facial muscle twitching as he gestured out in front of him with a slow sweep of his arm.

"Someone has a boner and I don't know who or where, but I can feel it."

An outrageously loud sneezing could be heard from the direction of Wrex as well as over the com channel from Joker while John tried not to laugh as Liara had a bewildered look on her face.

Alenko simply performed a face palm and shook his head.

**XXX**

"This is such a nice Mako," Jason paid about half an ear towards his twin's girlish squealing over the civilian edition of the tank, fancy way of saying viewports, weaker shields and a smaller gun, but it came with leather bench seats, "has improved shock absorbers and independent stabilization systems for a better ride without sacrificing speed or mobility."

"Wonderful, I'm driving." The pained whimpers from several faces were ignored as Jane climbed into the driver seat, John getting behind the gun as first Alenko and then Tali climbed onboard, leaving both of the brothers standing just outside the hatch.

Knowing what was about to happen once the Mako cleared the safety of the garage and began driving across the overpasses to the headquarters building past all of the Geth did nothing to sedate their fears about who was driving after having a sample of her driving not too long ago as Jason solemnly clapped his twin on the shoulder and climbed inside to get a decent seat before the driver of said vehicle left without him.

Jackson followed suit shortly thereafter, cursing about the cramped size of the interior after he managed to plop down next to the Alliance adept and they were off.

What followed next was a mere sixteen minutes of Hell, both Tali and Alenko were educated on how skillfully Jane operated the Mako while they were under hostile fire from a dozen armatures and thirty smaller Geth platforms along a very narrow stretch of road that had absolutely no cover or much room to maneuver, so it went something like this.

"Geth dropship inbound."

"Must be a dozen rockets coming our way."

"Igniting the thrusters."

"Holy crap Shepard! We nearly went over the edge!"

"Piece of civilian crap, doesn't do much damage against these things!"

"We can build up enough speed at this distance."

"For what!?"

"Ramming speed!"

"Oh Keelah we're going to die!"

"I am so glad I will not have to fix this thing."

"It's getting closer!"

"I know."

"It's right in front of us!"

"I know."

"We're running out of road!"

"I know that."

"Huh, seems that the gun is destroyed, they're all yours honey."

"With pleasure."

"Tanks are not meant to fly Shepard!"

"Did we just barrel roll!?"

"Yep, twice I believe."

"Siege pulse incoming!"

"Gonna have to ram it off the edge!"

"WHAT!?"

"BBBLLLLLAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!"

"Oh God it's all over the seats."

"What the Hell did you eat before coming on this mission?"

"Ancestors save us!"

"You think the damage will buff out or will I have to fix it?"

"Dunno, at this rate I'm glad we have plenty of omni-gel."

"Touché."

**XXX**

"Are you alright?" Jason had a right to be worried as he watched Tali stagger over to the wall and slide down it after they had stopped near the encampment of survivors, Jane and John opting to go on ahead while Jackson began patching up what was left of the Mako as Jason provided security.

Alenko was still inside the Mako passed out in a puddle of his own puke, not that anyone had been above taking a few pictures for blackmail purposes later as they exited the vehicle in a hasty manner, though Jason had checked his vitals after rolling him over just to make sure he would be alright.

Tali was still hyperventilating before she could speak, "That...how…isn't…Keelah."

"Deep breaths and you'll be fine Tali," Jason patted her shoulder before walking over to where a pair of legs were sticking out from under the Mako, next to a growing pile of Geth scrap, "how's it look?"

"Like a deranged madwoman took it for a drive through a combat zone, running over every single thing in her path, rolling the vehicle six times and bouncing it off walls at top speed a couple times," Jackson's face appeared as she shoved out a leg segment from an armature and he didn't look amused, "at this rate she'll destroy it long before we make it back."

Tali had recovered enough at this point to grab a fire extinguisher to hose down a burning section of the tank before Jason looked back down at his twin, "Would you like to walk instead?"

"Give me five minutes and she'll be running like a dream." With that Jackson disappeared underneath tank again whistling a jaunty tune as more scrap metal came flying out from under it before Jason provided his knowledge in helping Tali put out the fires and patch up what they could.

Fifteen minutes later the other two reappeared from the direction of the camp, "Can we be ready to move in five?"

Jackson shrugged after he stood up and kicked aside the small mountain of parts he managed to remove from under the vehicle, "It'll have to do as it is Bossman."

Tali looked up from the pile of scrap she had been digging through for Geth parts as Alenko stumbled his way out of the Mako, having finally woken up and become mobile again while Jason stood off to the side silently pleading to whatever deity had sent him to this dimension that Jane wasn't going to be driving again.

"I'll be driving the rest of the way there."

_Damn it._

**XXX**

It had taken some coaxing to get Tali back inside the tank, Alenko passing out after ten seconds of bouncy all over the place, poor bastard must have developed motion sickness on the spot and Jackson was crying over in the corner after the first Geth was sighted on the short jog over to the headquarters building.

"Looks like we'll have to continue on foot," Jane said as she eyed the thick doors open less than two meters wide in front of the Mako, failing to notice how fast everyone had piled out through the hatch behind her while she was too busy unbuckling her safety harness, "hopefully resistance is minimal once we're inside."

"Solid ground," Jackson cried out in joy as he dropped to his knees and bowed down to kiss it a couple times, "how I've missed you."

Alenko was too busy clutching onto a rock not too far away looking none to steady either as Jason helped Tali take a few steps to get her sense of balance back while John rolled out of the Mako and stood up without a word.

"Crap, motion tracker is all fuzzy," Jane said as she checked her omni-tool, "must be some jammers around here somewhere."

With that, everyone snapped out of it and they put their game faces on as Jason took point again through the doors and reached the ramp before the first rocket launcher wielding trooper stepped in plain view, looked over and spotted him.

Jason promptly hit it with a Throw and opened fire while everyone else rushed for cover once the Hoppers crawled out of whatever hole they had been hiding in and starting jumping around at random as the rest of the Geth decided to make an appearance.

Alenko, Jane and Tali focused on the Hoppers while John, Jackson and Jason took on the larger platforms armed with much larger weapons in a coordinated maneuver to bring maximum firepower to bear.

"How do you like me now!?" Or they simply stepped aside and let Jackson loose on them as he sprinted up to the first trooper and literally punted it across the room before he unleashed more firepower than he knew what to do with on their sorry asses.

"Are you gonna help him?" John asked while watching Jackson singlehandedly dismantled another three troopers with his bare hands and pitch a grenade at a fourth, laughing as he did while Jason simply took a breather, all that biotic expenditure had gotten to him finally.

"Naw," Jason waved him off and ducked to avoid a severed Geth arm sailing overhead, "he needs to earn his keep other than fixing that damn tank."

By the time the rest of the gang cleaned up the Hoppers and reached where them, Jackson had already dealt with the remaining troopers in a mixture of close quarters combat mixed with pistol fire, bladed weapons, grenades and hand-to-hand techniques before he turned around to notice everyone watching in awe, Jason was holding his omni-tool up with a large number eight highlighted.

"Oh thanks a bunch," cue the awkward coughing and looking around before Jackson stepped up and punched him on the shoulder, "you could've helped ya know."

"Déjà vu anyone?" Jane giggled as she head towards the only locked door in the entire place with Alenko trailing behind her like a lost puppy.

By the time Jason remembered what was on the other side of the door, he was already halfway across the room following the retreating figure of his brother as Jane Shepard all but skipped out of sight twirling her pistol while whistling a cheery tune.

That changed abruptly.

"HOLY SHIT!" Assorted gunfire, grenade explosions and a solitary biotic attacked followed by a pair of Overloads as Jackson went diving into the room headfirst with everyone else hot on his heels.

A Geth armature was dominating a majority of the room, the large hole in the ceiling telling everyone how it came to be as it was already expanded to its full height and was busy firing downward at the two unfortunate ones that disturbed it. Because the room was too small for any kind of maneuvers to evade the damn thing, it literally took up the entire room, Alenko and Jane performed a hasty withdrawal from the immediate area as fast as they could after realizing that what firepower they had wasn't going to put a dent in this thing while Jackson simply barreled past them at full tilt and tackled it.

Even Jason had to watch dumbfounded as his twin simply knocked it over with his combined weight and momentum before planting his feet on its back, grabbing hold of the protrusion that counted as its head in a mighty bear hug and pulled. Rending metal and failing circuits made a delightful sound as Jackson ripped off the head, taking its only means of seeing or sensing anything for that matter away in a brutal display of strength before he grabbed a leg and did the same thing.

Jason was already at work, slicing into the Geth software through a number of broken ports even while Jackson ripped the other three legs off in the same manner before taking a breather by sitting on top of the main body and laughed.

"Man that felt great," he laughed again before noticing the dumbfounded looks on everyone's face, well except for Jason who was busy hacking the Geth with a spare omni-tool he picked up from somewhere, "what?"

John had to admit the sight of his wife giggling like a maniac at the display of raw strength nearly made him nervous if it wasn't for a sight even more disturbing off to his left before he spoke to the Alliance adept in a deadpanned tone.

"Uh Lt. you should really get that nosebleed checked out…"

**XXX**

"Did I ever tell you guys how much I hate Varren?" Jackson whined as he kicked another charging Varren in the head while waiting for his rifle to complete the cooldown because he had overheated it while John resorted to using his sidearm at this range.

"Tell me about it," Jason snarled as he watched another three of them explode into a ball of fire, courtesy of a grenade he had just thrown, "I don't see an alpha though."

"Don't remind me," Tali replied as she promptly blasted another one into Swiss cheese, "I'll have to ask Wrex for advice about dealing with these things."

Jane laughed as she nudged the only civilian they've seen since the encampment, Lizbeth or something, back a little farther behind Alenko, "I think if you stick close to Jason you'll be alright."

"Oh?" Jason flinched at the tone Jackson had as he plunged his knife into another one that had gotten way to close, "Why is that?"

"He went toe to toe with one bare handed and won," Jane replied, ignoring the pleading looks from Jason as she turned to look at Tali, "nothing something normal people do for someone else."

Tali was saved from further embarrassment as Jackson simply laughed, punched another Varren in the face (which was a lot harder than it sounded) picked it up over his head and launched it towards several more charging Varren, the snarls and growls turning into yelps and whimpers after the flying Varren took down two of its counterparts, leaving everyone else just as stunned before Jackson pulled out a tomahawk and twirled it.

"Normal is far too overrated," he said before delivering brutal up close and personal skull crushing as well as spine severing blows without as so much as breaking a sweat, "at least he remembered what I taught him."

"Laugh it up," Jason scowled as he stowed his rifle in favor for his pistol and his biggest knife, "that was one of the very things I ever learned from that turned out to be useful."

"Really?" That started the beginning of what appeared to be witty banter between the two as they steadily mowed down the remaining Varren, sometimes working together without breaking stride in their conversation, which sounded a lot like trash talking to anyone listening while Lizbeth poked her head out from behind Alenko and voiced her opinion out loud.

"Are they related?"

Alenko turned back to inform her, "As a matter of fact they are twins believe it or not."

Jane noticed how her eyes practically lit up at that statement, a little warning bell going off in her head as the younger woman all but melted after taking another look at the duo currently demolishing what had to be the Varren population on Feros, "Is that so?"

"Yes," what disturbed Jane even more (and she had seen some pretty disturbing things in her days) was that Alenko joined her in the process of melting, even down to the same melodramatic sigh, "they sure are something aren't they?"

John mimed throwing up as Tali found herself gripping her shotgun a little tighter before she calmed herself down before Jane shook her head.

"Well this makes things interesting…"

"YOU'VE GOT THE SMALLER DICK!"

"JOKE'S ON YOU SHITHEAD!"

Cue the sweat drops forming as the methods of dispatching Varren became far more creative while John simply accessed his omni-tool and began working on something.

"What are you doing sweetie?" Jane asked as she draped an arm around his neck, knowing that the pet name she had for him got his attention.

"Working on my tax returns," that statement through her for a loop, "seems we'll have to wait until those two finish and I figured that I should do something productive in the meantime."

"Taxes, seriously?"

"Of course, I've managed a seventeen percent income return rate this quarter."

Jane simply sighed, "Don't remind me."

**BOOM!**

"Come out of there you little scale itch infested rat!" Jackson yelled as Jason pitched another grenade down what appeared to be the Varren den tunnel chewed through the side of the tunnel walls, "I am going to win this contest!"

"Up yours with a chainsaw," Jason snapped back as he lobbed another grenade down the hole, "I'll be getting the tie breaker."

Jane sighed heavily as she pinched her brow, "Those two sure are something else."

"Yep."

**BOOM!**

"Ha! I win!"

"Damn it!"


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve **

"Argh stupid machine! Access encrypted files!" Jackson silently crept forward as John nodded his head and moved off to the side so he had a clear line of sight on the Krogan arguing with a VI, which was a either a feat in sheer restraint to not simply smash it or a lesson in humility as the damn VI droned on about how it couldn't allow unauthorized users access to classified documents as he slowly inched closer.

Jason seemed to be slowing down, due to all that fancy biotic work earlier and the fact he had also lost the contest, which meant that Jackson got first dibs and he wanted to take this Krogan down without bringing a dozen equally large angry reptilian cousins on top of them when they heard gunfire, so it was now officially Plan B.

"Please move aside, there is a queue forming up behind you," the VI rattled off as everyone froze, including the Krogan that had just enough brain cells working in tandem to turn around to see who was standing behind, "have a pleasant day."

Jackson was less than six feet away with his larger knife drawn as John could be seen at the end of the hallway leveling a sniper rifle, Jane and Alenko brandishing pistols, Jason with that awesome assault rifle the Krogan made a note of stealing after killing them all and Tali in the middle of summoning her combat drone into existence, so Plan B was a go, good old fashioned standby.

"BANZAI!"

Jackson launched himself towards the Krogan before it could pull out a shotgun, instead roaring a challenge and lurching towards him, challenge accepted.

It was over before it even started, as soon as Jackson latched onto the Krogan and reared his head back, it was now his bitch as the Krogan smiled at the sight of a puny human head-butting him as he tossed his head back and decided to crush this weak pyjack where he stood.

**CRACK!**

Only to discover that Jackson was made of much tougher stuff, bowling the Krogan over with a head-butt that was just short of atomic powered to the much larger and more suited for alien when it came to cracking his head plate against something, much to the shock of those watching, Jackson was winning the pseudo grappling contest as he reared his head back again for another strike.

**CRACK!**

**CRACK!**

That did it, several spider web like cracks could be seen in the toughened head plate to those watching on before Jackson inserted his knife under the edge of the weaken plate, smashing the butt of his knife with the palm of his free hand for added power before performing a shoulder throw.

With a Krogan. With spectacular results.

"HHHUUUUUHHRRRGGHHH!" Said Krogan was having himself a really bad day now that he looked up to see that cursed human standing over him holding a bloody knife and his crest plate in either hand after being slammed into the ground.

"Say goodnight." Jackson chimed before plunging the crest plate he had just removed via prying it off the old fashioned way, pointy edge first into the soft tissue where it used to sit seconds ago like a guillotine one handed before performing the palm slamming technique from earlier to drive the crest plate in much deeper.

Needless to say, the Krogan wasn't getting up again, like ever.

"Holy shit Juggernaut," Jane gasped as she stepped up to run a scan over the dead Krogan (more importantly to take a picture actually) before turning to give him a shocked look, "why didn't you just shoot him?"

Jackson shrugged while sliding his knife back into the sheath on his shoulder, "Got to keep my skills sharp Boss Lady, no pun intended."

Jason sighed as he glanced from the body before back to his twin, "Did you really have to scalp the poor bastard? Could've just shot him in the back of the head and been done with it."

"I've got skills," Jackson shot back while crossing his arms, "deal with it."

John was busy arguing with the VI once it registered that he was a researcher that was uncannily named after the one they had ran into earlier, turned out she had passed off her ID before they left, so he was grilling it for all it was worth as Jason wandered off to hack something.

"Okay bad news," Jackson looked up from his work of installing a new ammo mod into his rifle as everyone crowded around John, "turns out ExoGeni has a dirty secret, something called a Thorian…"

**XXX**

"Okay, no more horror movies for you," Jason said as he watched his twin try to wipe the excess Krogan blood and guts off himself with little success.

"What? They had it coming if I say so myself," Jackson replied as he motioned towards the glowing orb of light they had stumbled upon after taking out the last Geth, which appeared to be worshipping it or something, "any idea what that thing is?"

Jane harrumphed as she hopped down from the high ledge and landed in a crouch, "Some kind of alter maybe?"

"I don't know," John said as he nudged it with the barrel of his rifle, "looks important."

"Could be some kind of high beta wave signal transmitter," Tali said as she struggled to get down carefully from the ledge as Jason took three steps back and held up his arms, mentally counting down in his own head as everyone watched, "must be able for the Geth to interface-whoa!"

With that, the Quarian engineer came tumbling down, frantically waving her arms toward the ledge she was falling from as Jason caught her easily, holding her bridal style as he could feel the power of her blush when he turned to face the rest of the squad.

"I always wanted to witness a shotgun wedding," Jackson laughed as he nudged Alenko in the ribs, "are you a minister so they can get hitched?"

Jane covered her mouth to smother her giggles before she got an evil idea, "I thought you would treat her better, now you have to take responsibility Jason."

"Yeah," John had caught on to what his wife was thinking and he had no qualms when it came to egging her on when she got caught up in it, "wait till the rest of the crew hears about this."

Alenko, the sly bastard, decided to chime in with his two cents, "As we are gathered here today to witness the holy matrimony…"

Tali was squirming in his arms as Jason gently set her down and kicked a small rock laying on the ground directly at the would be preacher at speeds possible below Mach 3, making a loud ding followed by a soft thud that was Alenko hitting the ground clutching his stomach because he had gotten the wind knocked out of him and a dented chest plate for his troubles as he attempted to breathe.

"Are you all finished?" No one said a word as he turned to face Tali, "looks like the Geth dropship is latched onto the side of the building, want to see what we can learn from it while the comedy club tries out their next rendition of acting the fool?"

Once everyone mumbled a half-assed apology and Alenko was back upright, Jason carefully crawled among the assorted cables and attachment claws until he found what he was looking for on the underside of the dropship, a hatch.

"I'll be back in five minutes," Jason said after he easily pried the door open and crawled inside with only his biotics and a pistol for protection, "I'll plant the explosives and grab what I can."

"Be careful," Tali said just before he disappeared from view, the light from his helmet and omni-tool the only sign of him, "I hope he is okay."

Jackson sighed as he patted the top of her helmet, "He hasn't even been gone five seconds and you already miss him? Got to say Ms. Brody that your marriage might will be interesting."

"I HEARD THAT!" The shout from inside the dropship was followed by the sounds of something breaking while Tali tried to remember how to breathe as Jane decided to be the only decent person and calm her down.

"He was just joking Tali," a glare sent at the towering behemoth got her point across, "he'll be fixing the Mako by himself before we leave."

"What!?" Jackson pouted as a miniature rain cloud appeared over his head, "You're so mean Boss Lady."

"That's what's you get for picking on her," Jane smirked as she patted Tali on the shoulder again, "though I think you two would've made a lovely couple."

"SERIOUSLY? I'M RIGHT HERE YOU KNOW!"

"Find anything interesting in there?" John decided to defuse the situation by getting back on track before his wife began talking about wedding dates and dresses, once she started, there would be an actual wedding taking place.

Tali was too busy trying to get her heart rate back under control before her suit administered sleeping supplements while paying attention to something to get her focused on something else before a large rectangular object came soaring out of the hatch, hitting Jackson in the leg, followed by a few smaller objects, some strands of cabling and what looked like another weapon, but she had never seen it before as Jason came crawling out.

She stifled a laugh at the sight of him covered in filth and looking cross with something as he untangled himself from other cables and stood up, cursing once he realized how dirty his visor was.

"I think I found the black box," Tali tilted her head in thought, trying to puzzle out what he meant before he explained, "or at least what looked like a flight data recorder before I planted the explosives around the miniature drive core and set the timer for ten minutes, along with whatever that thing is."

Tali turned to look at what he was pointing at, already holding a few pieces of what had to be some kind of Geth data processor that could potentially be the flight data recorder, it looked like a really big sniper rifle as Jackson hefted it before placing it on his back, "Where'd you find it?"

"On a wall inside attached to a magnetic strip," Jason shrugged before grabbed the remaining pieces and stored them in his pouches while Tali did the same, itching to tear them apart and learn what she could from them, but for now she had to wait until they returned to the ship, "it looked important, so I grabbed it."

"Nice," Jane said as she took point, "now all we'll have to do is clear out the rest of the Geth and then we'll head back to the colony to see whatever this Thorian creature is."

Jason rolled his eyes after his twin let out a groan, though he wasn't the only one at the thought of her driving as they booked it for the stairs. Along the way, no Geth yet until they reached the room with the door controls, then again he was pretty sure placing a set of explosive charges directly on top of the drive core and the nerve cluster of the dropship would be sufficient enough to destroy it, it still made sense to go clear out the rest of the Geth.

"I love the ammo mod," Jane said after plunging seven shots into a trooper they stumbled across, where as it would have taken her ten or more to even take down its shields, "you have to look into a patent."

_Way ahead of you Shepard, _Jason shrugged as they finally reached the big room with a huge claw sticking through the wall, a couple Geth terminals and a whole shit load of…

"GETH!" Tali shrieked as a Hopper was either ballsy enough or stupid enough to land less than three feet in front of her.

Hopper went bye-bye.

From it resorted into a free-for-all shooting spree in the general direction of the Geth as everyone dove for whatever cover they could find before they got turned into a sieve.

"Prime moving up on the stairs!" John called out in warning.

Jackson grinned as he pulled that Geth weapon, easily identifiable as an early model Widow, but it looked strange for some reason, "On it!"

**ZZUUAAAPPP!**

Jason glanced over at the obliterated Prime, the smoldering crater in the wall behind it and the massive shit eating grin plastered across Jackson's face and took it all in stride before lobbing a grenade towards a pocket of shock troopers coming their way.

"What kind of rifle is that?" Alenko asked before ducking to avoid having his head taken off by a burst of gunfire.

"Hehehehehehe, its mine now!" Jackson gloated before rising up to fire another shot, the cooldown period was twice as long as any other weapon, for good reason it seemed, because the recoil alone was able to slam Jackson backwards a couple steps.

John gave the rifle a longing look after watching it mow down four shock troopers standing in a line with only one shot before looking down at his own rifle, "I have got to get me one of those."

"Get in line," Jason shouted back as he launched a rather weak Throw in order to knock over a trooper that had a rocket launcher, "I still have to run diagnostics on it first."

Jackson twirled around so fast he nearly whapped Alenko in the head with the long barrel with a pleading look on his face, "What?"

"Looks like the big guy feels a little attached to it," Jane commented before her Overload caused another trooper to short out, "when is that dropship about to…"

**KKKAAAA-BBBBOOOOOMMMMMIISSSKKKK!**

"Never mind."

"How many programs do you think were inside that dropship," Jason asked Tali as they watched the last Prime get taken down with a single shot from Jackson's new rifle, "rough estimate?"

Tali stowed her shotgun and did some kind of mental calculation in her head, tapping the chin of her helmet while her toes tapped in unison with her finger before she shrugged, "I'd have to guess at least two million separate programs, maybe three?"

Jason smiled as he walked over to an unmolested terminal and began hacking it with ease while Tali attacked another with her omni-tool at the ready as Jane took the last one, leaving John, Alenko and Jackson to cover them, even though that had been the last of the Geth. Alenko helped by grabbing a few parts off each Prime while John seemed to be searching for his own rifle among the remains, finding a Geth sniper still intact, but the rifle was much smaller, so he kept it anyway.

"Come in…Shepard…colonists…..need assistance…." Joker's voice could be heard over the com now that the dropship was somewhere in a crater smoldering as John decided to answer it immediately.

"Think you can clean this up?" Jane nodded as did some magic on her omni-tool just as Jason finished with his data mine, having cleaned the terminal out for all it was worth, a damn good thing he had found multiple omni-tools along the way because this was the third one he had filled up with lots of data.

"Normandy to ground team, come in," Joker sounded frantic as the rest of the static was dealt with, "we have a huge problem here, please answer me."

"This is the ground team, go ahead Normandy."

"Commander? Oh thank God, listen all of the colonists went nuts a little while ago, clawing and attacking the ship," there were brief glances exchanged between everyone, "the rest of the team are inside now after they couldn't subdue them, what are your orders?"

"It has to be the Thorian influencing them," Jane said before John nodded and keyed his mike, "Tell the crew to sit tight and wait, we'll be on our way."

"No hurry Commander," Joker shot back, "it's just that they are scratching my baby so could you please do something about it?"

"Copy that Normandy, ground team out," John twirled his hand while heading in the direction of the stairs, "double time people, back to the Mako!"

**XXX**

"Ugh," Jackson groaned as he all but dropped onto the ground with a thud, "next time, I drive."

"We were in a hurry," Jane said as she jumped out, "I told you that we would make that last jump."

"Life….flashing….eyes," Alenko hiccupped that sounded like he was trying to keep whatever he had left down, even though most of it was all over the inside of the Mako, "go on without…"

"Man up soldier," John snapped as he lifted the man to his feet and gave him a thorough shake, not something to be advised when the individual shaking looks close to throwing up, "we have a job to do."

Tali landed on top of Jackson after she missed the safety handles and simply laid there with a groan, "I almost threw up."

"Commander, I don't think driving the Mako off the top of an unstable building two hundred feet down onto a roadway was such a good idea," Jason said as he carefully climbed out and helped Tali and Jackson to their feet before giving Jane a glare that would terrify lesser mortals, "making the jump by less than six meters mind you."

"It's a good thing we got those grenade upgrade mods," Jane continued on without as so much as acknowledging the fact he had been right, "hopefully we can avoid killing the colonists."

Jason sighed deeply before following the others over to the door before Jackson stopped and walked over to a familiar looking lump on the ground.

All was going great until it stood up, fanged mouth, elongated claws, sunken face and the sickly green color summed up as what could only be a Thorian Creeper and hissed as Jackson, who simply cocked a fist back and punched it as hard as he could.

Instead of simply breaking its neck and sending it sailing through the air from the force of his punch alone, much to his horror and disgust, his armored hand went through the soft tissue like a hot knife through butter, leaving him with a disgusting ornament hanging off his forearm because his arm had taken its chin off before going through the shoulder.

"Eeeeww," Jackson whined as he shook his arm off before kicking it away, "that was so gross."

"Was that a colonist?" Jane looked as close as one could get to blanching without throwing up as Jason elected himself to walk over and scan the darn thing, after he put a couple rounds in what was left of its head, last thing he wanted it getting back up on him.

His omni-tool beeped after a minute of scanning was done on it, "Nope, this thing is comprised of entirely, and I hope this thing isn't wrong, plant matter."

"Plant?" John asked as he walked over and kicked it over so he could get a good look at it, "so we got walking weeds coming after us?"

Jason shrugged as he stood up, "No idea Commander, odds are we'll find more of them inside."

Jackson took his assault rifle and removed the current ammo mod he had had installed before going for something more suited for taking down soft targets, which he had brought along just for this reason, "I don't think that fancy shock mod will work on these things bro."

"Everyone, switch your weapons over to organic based ammo mods," John ordered as he began doing the same.

"Shoot these things, but hit the colonists with a modified grenade," Jane tacked on, "last thing we need is too kill innocent people trying to save them."

Once everyone was ready, Jason walked over to the door control and raised his fist, watching as Jackson climbed inside the Mako out of the corner of his eye while the rest of the ground team formed up, facing the door as he hit the switch and began backpedaling.

There were dozens of them in that curled up form, a lot more than had ever been in the game as Jackson let it rip with the main gun as they all starting standing up with a chorus of hisses and snarls before turning to face them.

"This is going to be fun."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

One thing that Jason learned was that Creepers could in fact spit a glob of acidic chemicals that were completely natural, something he kept in mind for a later date, from twenty feet pretty damn accurately.

"That is disgusting!" Jackson shouted after he dodged a steaming glob of something best left undescribed before opening up with his rifle, "Don't let it hit you."

Jane was busy lighting them up from afar with the main cannon before the Creepers got to close for her to shoot them without endangering the lives of everyone else, if it had been up to him, Jason would have simply used the Mako to mow them down and run over any of them that got to close. A glance back at the tank reminded him exactly why the Mako had stopped where it did and why it wasn't moving either, so the easy way of doing things was out the window as he got back to work on the task at hand.

Killing Creepers before they could tear him apart, or drown him in acid or even slash him to ribbons, but there had to be close to a hundred of the damn things shambling towards them.

Shotguns were brutally effective, hands down, when it came to fighting these things as they blindly charged point blank in front of them, Tali, Jason and Jackson were the only ones in the team armed with shotguns, as John and Alenko resorted to pistols, Jane shooting those that she could that were father away, ignoring the weapons' fire coming from the possessed colonists farther back, their accuracy was laughable as Jason put that issue to the back of his mind for now.

A line of fallen corpses had formed just a few feet short of the edge of the door by now as Jason found himself with overheated weapons and several irate Creepers within arms' reach, so he did what Jackson was doing and pulled out a decent length of sharpened titanium alloy from a sheath located somewhere on his person and started hacking.

To put it fairly, Jackson was a whirlwind of flashing metal and decapitated Creepers flying around as he used both his fancy tomahawk and his big knife while Jason used his machete, there had a been a reason he held onto one of these for so long after all, while the others fell a short distance back to give them room to work. A damn good thing neither one of them were dedicated brain surgeons (Jason decided to omit he did in fact have that knowledge in his head) because from what anyone could see, their combined bedside manner sucked to the point where serial murders with a thing for dicing up victims would have to look away at some point because it, quite frankly, wasn't pretty.

"Keelah," Tali whispered in shock as she watched them steadily take down each Creeper heading towards them as she waited for her shotgun to cooldown, "how is it they fight like that?"

"A sight to see for sure," John muttered as he delivered a violent elbow to the face of a Creeper that had gotten past the death duo mauling a majority of them, "never gets old."

Sure enough, Jackson was launching his twin into the air before tackling another Creeper, Jason landing on a trio of them hard enough to kill one and decapitate the other two before they moved back to back in a particular maneuver that allowed them to push each other out of harm's way from the direction the other couldn't see. A subtle nudge there, a backhand swat here and an actual push on several occasions that didn't interfere with how they fought, each of them duking, ducking and diving out of the way of either acid spit or a wild slashing limb.

Alenko used that time to pitch a grenade towards the cluster of colonists so they got a healthy whiff of a special chemical cocktail that put them under before the last of the advancing Creepers just dried up until nothing so much as moved as everyone caught they're breath.

**BAM!**

Multiple heads turned to where Tali was standing, shotgun pointed a still twitching Creeper on the ground, "It just moved."

Jason sighed as he shook the organic matter off the blade of his machete before drawing out his rifle and stepped over to the unconscious colonists to get a decent medical reading on them while everyone else picked their way past the small mound of stinking corpses.

"Tenacious bunch eh?" Jane said as they reached where Jason was crouched over the prostate forms of several colonists, weapons tossed a short distance away, "How are they?"

"They'll live," Jason replied as he got to his feet, snatching a pair of shotguns to toss over to John and Alenko, "nothing more than some decent rest and a good dose of medi-gel can't fix once they get back on their feet, but for now they'll be alright."

A collective sigh of relief went through the group as they took the elevator up a couple levels to reach the colony proper, it had to be the slowest elevator in existence considering it was made on some out of the way colony world before Jane broke the silence.

"How are your amps treating you?" She was in full on commander mode now as Alenko spun around for her to check his for herself before she stepped over Jason, who was fidgeting uncomfortably as she leveled a glare at him that told him he was going to be in trouble, "well?"

"It's fine Commander." Jason said as he noticed Jackson standing off to the side shaking his head before Jane crossed her arms.

"I'm not going to yank it, I just want to make sure it isn't loose or overheated," she nodded before clapping her hands, "now ditch the helmet and turn around so I can get a look at it."

"Uh Boss Lady," Jackson pitched out awkwardly, "he doesn't have an amp wired up in his skull."

"WHAT!?"

Jason sighed as he pulled off his helmet and slowly turned around as everyone in the elevator looked over to see the small metal plate at the base of his skull.

"He's got a medical implant slot, so don't give me that baloney 'he doesn't have an amp' crap because humans can't create miniature mass effect fields without one for more than ten seconds," Jane sounded pissed as she tapped the small plate with a finger, "odd, it isn't opening."

"That's because it isn't an amp Commander," Jason said as he turned around again to find himself less than a foot away from Alenko and Jane as he tugged his helmet back on, "it's a dampener, used to suppress my biotics."

Stunned silence and then.

"WWWWHHHHHHAAAAATTTTT!"

**XXX**

"Think we should have told them sooner?" Jackson asked as he watched everyone hold a huddle on the other side of the hallway, well Jane, Alenko and John were holding a huddle while Tali stood next to Jason wringing her fingers nervously.

"She did kind of take it hard this time," Jason answered as he remembered how Jane nearly had a mental breakdown in the elevator while Alenko did a damn good impersonation of a fish for about thirty seconds before snapping out of it, "I don't see why it is such a big deal."

In a flash he found himself bending backwards at the waist to avoid the finger Jane was shoving under his nose, ranting about the fundamentals of human biotics, scientific algorithms and metaphorical scenarios theorized by the smartest minds humanity could offer for the last thirty years before John pulled her away, a wry grin plastered across his face, the bastard.

"Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it is a big deal," Jackson nodded his head in her direction for extra emphasize, "especially to her."

"Alright, I get it, we'll play Twenty Questions after we save the colonists, kill the Creepers and take care of this Thorian," Jason shot a glare back at Jane, putting a lot of emphasize on the last word, "later."

"Creepers?" Tali sounded confused as Jason mentally cursed himself, "You named them already?"

"Yeah it fits, or we can call them unidentified plant based hostile combatants."

"Creepers seems to work."

"I thought so myself."

Jane seemed to snap out of her rant mode and change back to commander mode (much to the relief of everyone present) long for her to get a hold of herself as she took point, everyone else falling in behind her as she lead the way towards the stairs.

Immediately regretting her decision once she came under fire from a couple enthralled colonists as a dozen Creepers got up from their nap and came towards them. It took the combined efforts from everyone to wipe out the oncoming Creepers, toss a grenade at the first batch of colonists to put them under the effects of the sandman for a while and proceed to lead the way down the narrow stairs littered with pockets of dormant Creepers galore because Jane decided that she was best served in the back of the group launching sabotage attacks so the possessed colonists couldn't fire back at them.

"Hey," Jackson drawled out as he turned around to look at everyone cowering behind him, "why do I have to go first?"

Before anyone could answer, a pair of Creepers appeared from nowhere, causing him to lash out with a vicious backhand into the nearest wall with ease before he blasted them both to bits.

"Never mind."

Once they reached the ground level, several tightly grouped colonists were wondering why their weapons began the cooldown cycle even though they hadn't fired a shot before a grenade came zipping towards and exploding in a non-lethal cloud of green smoke, in one instance a grenade caromed off the forehead of a particular colonist before exploding.

"He moved," Jackson stated as they all stood around a trio of colonists that were out cold, though one of them had been unconscious before the grenade detonated, "it wasn't my fault."

"Might as well throw some rocks at them," John sighed after he patted down his grenade pouches, "I'm out."

"None."

"Just threw the last one."

"Ran out after the group at the stairs."

"I've got one," Tali said as she held the sole gas grenade up for all too see before Jason reached over and lobbed it at the last group of colonists with surprising results, "and now I don't."

The remaining Creepers were coming out of the woodwork (no pun intended) now after the last colonists had fallen as the narrow catwalks and gaps between machinery was both a blessing and curse for them to funnel the overwhelming numbers into more manageable lines of staggered columns before the last Creeper bit the dust. Well, it hit the ground after Tali found herself several yards away from the rest of the team with an overheated shotgun and face to visor with a lumbering Creeper before she let out a shriek and bopped it in the face repeatedly with the butt of her trusty shotgun to throw it off balance before an orb of dazzling biotic energy whizzed past her and hit the Creeper.

Hard enough to cause it to disintegrate at the molecular level.

"Thanks," Tali offered as she stepped past the steaming pile of goop to rejoin the squad, "I owe you one."

"Think nothing of it," Jason said as he handed her a second shotgun, a Tornado Mk V as her eyes practically lit up with joy, "I found this, figured you could use it."

Jackson made a gagging sound somewhere in the background, "Cue the mushy stuff, alright people let's get a move on before you two have wild passionate sex all over the side of that freighter."

Tali fumbled with the shotgun Jason had just handed her, her blush clearly visible as Jason narrowed his eyes in a manner that spoke of revenge before he spotted something move just behind his twin, causing him to galvanize into action.

First he grabbed the sniper rifle off his shoulder, hitting the extend button the second it cleared the magnetic strip on his back while he was slinging it in the direction of the newcomer, watching as the rifle whizzed past Jackson's head in slow motion. Once it missed Jackson's head by less than two inches, it sailed through the air flipping end over end before the buttstock slammed into the face of none other than Fai Dan, knocking him cold before he could go into the whole 'I've lost control, but I won't listen to the voices anymore' and decided to off himself with his own sidearm as it all happened in a span of four seconds.

Stunned looks greeted him as Jason turned back to face John, "I didn't have a rock Commander."

**XXX**

"Smells like moldy socks, mustard, broccoli and do I detect a hint of really bad BO?" Jackson asked out loud as they filed down the stairs after discovering the crane controls had something important locked down and found the underground tunnel.

"Ugh, did you just have to describe it?" Jane wheezed as she slapped the larger man on the shoulder.

"The BO is obviously coming from you idiot." Jason answered as he stepped forward to stoop down next to some footprints on the ground as Jackson could be seen taking a whiff of his armpit before turning to Tali.

"Do I stink?"

Tali shrugged, "I turned off my olfactory filters when we ran into the first Creeper, so I couldn't tell you."

"I knew I should have grabbed my full helmet," Alenko groaned as he eased himself past a section of the ceiling that was dripping some noxious fluids, "what do you'll think we'll find?"

_A giant sentient plant with the ability to spawn endless clones while trying to kill us, _Jason opted to say nothing as he helped Tali over a large rock that fallen across the stairwell some time ago before everyone else made it over and continued on.

"We've got some derelict equipment over here," John said as he knelt next to a crate and started hacking it, "check them for additional weapons before we move on."

Jane stopped as she put her hands on her hips, "I swear every time you train everyone to became as much of a pack rat as you are."

"Tactical acquiring of useful assets," John answered hotly as he appeared with a fistful of hand grenades, a couple mods and some credit chits, "scrounging for intel, replacement equipment and critical items."

"Looting you mean," Jane groaned after she noticed everyone else was too busy pilfering other containers for whatever they could find, "never mind."

Once they managed to restock on medi-gel, grenades, spare mods, credits and a few handy upgrades that were implemented immediately on the spot before they continued on down the winding stairs to find the Thorian.

Before they reached a startling sight.

"All we have to do is find this Thorian and then…." John trailed off as they stepped into the final chamber to behold the giant heart shaped plant that was suspended above a bottomless chasm by several long strands of roots that were a meter thick, "well shit."

"You said it Bossman," Jackson gapped at it for a few seconds before turning to Jason, "tell me that you brought more explosives."

"Not enough," Jason answered as he held up the last demolition charge he had left, "I was saving this one for an emergency."

"This doesn't count?" Alenko asked before looking at the Thorian again, "Look at the size of that thing."

"If it was moving, then it'd be a real threat," Jason ignored the stunned looks sent his way, "right now it is sitting there stinking up the place, so it's harmless."

That was when it started pulsing and deposited a carbon copy of an Asari commando in a sickly green color to the surprise of everyone as they gave Jason another look.

"Seen weirder," Jason shrugged, "so it crapped out a green Asari, what's it gonna do next, talk us to death?"

That was when the clone started talking.

Jason pretty much zoned out, fiddling with a stack of hand grenades and his last demo charge while he ran his omni-tool to fabricate as much military grade demolition cord it could with samples taken from his surroundings while Jackson caught onto his plan and began doing the same thing, sans the demo charge. Both John and Jane were talking to the Thorian, or at least the clone that could talk while Alenko kind of stood there in shock as Tali alternated between glancing around and adjusting her omni-tool before the final line came up.

"Perish before us…"

"Jason, I do believe it is time to neutralize that overgrown weed because I believe it is threatening us," Jackson mocked as he handed the conglomeration of grenades and det cord to him, "need a hand?"

"Two," Jason sighed as he hefted both explosive devices that looked like science projects gone horribly wrong in each hand before tensing up, "now throw me."

"What?" John asked after he just got done blasting the Asari look-alike in the chest.

"NOW SIC'EM!"

Everyone watched in stunned silence as Jackson picked up Jason and tossed him across the fifteen foot gap ten feet upwards in order for the smaller twin to land on the top of the Thorian before he slammed both bundles down in the fleshly carapace at his feet and vaulted back towards the ledge with a glowing biotic aura.

Just after he landed, another clone had been spawned as it dropped down behind, "Intruders! You shall fall before…"

Jason blindly fired his dual weapon over his shoulder, blasting the clone off the ledge as he stood to his full height and began walking forward slowly, activating his omni-tool before he tossed back over his shoulder, "Only one falling around here is you."

"Now is a good time to run," Jackson pitched out to the others while he busy tossing Creepers into the pit, "like right now."

The resulting explosion was enough to shake the whole place after everyone managed to reach the safety of the short hallway while Jason calmly walked along without a care in the world until he turned around to see the aftermath of his handiwork once the dust settled.

Smoldering bits of organic matter was strewn around the walls, floor and ceiling of the chamber, small fires burning here and there while dismembered Creepers that had been caught in the blast were scattered around as well.

"Seems that I'm getting the feeling you don't do a job halfway," John remarked as he brushed some gooey substance off his shoulder, taking in the whole scene.

"This is awesome!" Jane whooped as she looked around, "You literally blew that creepy ass plant away!"

"It wasn't enough," Jason deadpanned as he took everything in with a critical eye, "it should've incinerated the remains instead of leaving pieces."

Jane face faulted, "What?"

"He gets like this sometimes," Jackson shrugged, "he takes his work to a whole new level, and he considers anything short of total annihilation is unacceptable in his mind."

Tali looked around before she stepped up next him, "It was very impressive work regardless Jason."

It sounded like she was smiling, Jason shrugged, "Guess I'll have to do better next time."

"What?" Tali worriedly looked around frantically for something, "Is there another Thorian?"

Jason laughed while shaking his head, earning a cute chuckle from her as well.

Jackson sighed before giving Alenko a nudge to the shoulder, "So whatca think poster boy? Like the redecorating job, we did it for free no less."

"I think that I have realized I will never understand this team," Alenko wearily shrugged, "genocidal Spectre on the run, a collection of unique characters, Geth, cyborg zombies, mind controlling plants and then you and your brother."

"Yeah," Jackson scratched the side of his head, "it could be worse you know."

**SMACK!**

"Never jinx us," Jason growled as he lowered his hand, causing Alenko to sweat drop at the sight while Tali looked on, "it never ends well."

"Ugh guys," Jane said, getting the attention of everyone as she pointed at the developing scene, "looks like it just did."

One of the sacs hanging on the wall was breaking open before it deposited a familiar looking Asari that was blue as Jackson had to be the wiseass.

"Mazel tov, it's a girl."

**SMACK!**

**XXX**

"Looks like the colony will make a full recovery," Fai Dan said as he took in the scene of the bustling colony, the heavy oppressive air gone now as the air was clearing up, "thanks to your help."

"It was no problem," Jane said as she massaged her temples, a result of receiving the Cipher a little while ago, "we were glad to help."

"I wonder if he knows I can't take him seriously with that huge bandage on his forehead," Jackson whispered to his twin while they were busy tossing another Creeper corpse into an open bonfire, "I mean he should wait before he goes running around with that on his head."

Jason grunted in reply, nodding at Wrex who had passed them toting a dead Creeper in each hand as Garrus could be seen helping Liara moving another dead Creeper over to the fire, Ashley was busy storing a bunch of spare weapons into another crate to take back to the Normandy for later. Alenko was over yonder massaging his own head for completely different reasons while he was busy helping a colonist tech repair something that looked important, John was taking to Miss What's Her Name With The Attitude before he walked away looking very pleased with himself.

Tali was sitting down near a pile of crates as Jason decided to join her for a short break, even though he didn't need it, he figured that he could play the overtaxed biotic card for now.

"How are you doing Tali?" That got a startled response from her before she realized it was just him.

"Hhmmm, deciding on how I'll explain this to the Admiralty Board once I finish my Pilgrimage," Tali made a vague hand gesture towards the burning pile of Creepers, "I'm having a hard time believing it myself."

"Eh, once you seen…" Jason trailed off before shaking his head, "on second thought, you don't want to know."

Together they sat in a comfortable silence, Jason smiled after he squeezed her hand and got a gentle squeeze in return, allowing her to slump onto his shoulder to rest for a moment, lost in the moment.

Unknowingly catching the attention of Jane as she smiled at the sight, she'd do something about them skirting around the issue later.

"Sure is something eh?" Jane jumped three feet into the air as she whirled around to see Jackson standing there behind her, how did someone that big move so quietly?

"Yeah, those two are cute together." Jane laughed before feeling an armored hand larger than her husband's land on her shoulder, finding herself looking into the serious face of Jackson.

"Let's leave them to their own devices for now," his tone brooked no argument from her before the giant smiled deviously, "at least until we need to interfere."

"We?"

"Of course," Jackson lowered his voice, "because you and I both know those two are helpless expressing themselves to each other, have seen that guy hit on girls?"

A shudder went through his body before he gave her a baleful look, "It would be horrific to witness."

"I can think of a few things…" Jane trailed off as she let the comment hang in the air, a chuckle escaping her lips.

She now had an accomplice.

**XXX**

_AACCHHOOOO!_

"Are you alright?" Tali perked up from her stolen moment of leaning on his shoulder, "Is it something in the air?"

"I don't know," Jason shrugged as he tugged Tali to her feet, "we better get back to work."

"You can let go now," Tali whispered as Jason realized that he been holding onto her hand for the entire time.

"Sorry," Jason felt color creep into his face as he awkwardly looked around, "shall we?"

Neither one of them noticed the smiles on the faces of everyone present as they continued on restoring the colony to its former glory.

Even while something great was blooming.


End file.
